# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1861_S127
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Affairs. 127

convened and passed formal resolutions on two important matters of congregational life. They resolved, namely, to protest by an appendix against any improvement of the (presumably rationalistic) hymnal in a new edition, and further, that dishonorable brides should be shown the same churchly honors as honorable ones. It was, indeed, to be expected that if the hearers in congregations where God's Word and the confession are not acknowledged by all members were granted a share in the governance of the church, this would lead to such revolutionary steps.

Löhe. So writes a Lutheran in southern Germany under date of January 11: "In Bavaria, Löhe stands with his admirers and followers in crass chiliasm; he applauds the notorious revivals in Ireland and North America, is in correspondence with the Irvingian Lutz in Basel, and this hero of the Lutherans sympathizes with the Jerusalem Brethren. All this happens so that whoever still has salt in himself may recognize that our church must not surrender itself to the authority of any famous man, but only to the Word and the confession conformed to it."

Province of Prussia. The Darmstadt K.-Z. [Kirchenzeitung] is written to from there: "The great majority of the clergy are good Lutherans (?), without, however, taking any part in the confessional harshness and extravagances of the Lutheran societies. A mild unionistic sentiment, which places its main emphasis on living faith and on this ground feels itself at one even with those who are adherents of another confession, is what altogether prevails; the two chief representatives of the Hengstenberg direction in our province departed this life last year, and now there is not even a single one left to represent their direction here. Representatives of the unionistic party do not show themselves at the pastoral conferences (at Gumbinnen, Danzig, and Königsberg), which is no particular testimony to their courage as witnesses; yet it must be considered that they are quite easily counted, so few are they." It seems that there one understands by the "United" the Rationalists. That is perhaps not so bad, only the Pietists, who wish to be "good Lutherans" alongside "unionistic sentiment," should consider that despite all their protestations they are nevertheless infected with a rationalistic spirit.

Baden. Here things look wretched. Even men like Prelate Ullmann and Superior Consistorial Councillor Heinz have been too unbearably orthodox for the Baden church. They have accordingly been pushed out of the church government. With the following words the president of the Superior Consistory, Nüßlin, expressed, in an address to the clergy, the spirit that shall now be decisive in the conduct of church affairs: "It is indeed not possible that men subject to error should be of one mind and seek to reach the common goal by the same path. But just as our church, taking account of human nature, gives room to differing views, so we too wish to acknowledge and honor every honest conviction that rests on the foundation of our church as legitimate." Where such a thing can even be spoken aloud, matters must in truth stand dreadfully. Yet we here in America ought not to be especially horrified at this, as at something unheard of. For even papers here that call themselves Lutheran now express exactly the same principles.

"The Sovereign's Summepiscopate According to Reformation Principles." This is the title of a small work which Consistorial Councillor Dr. Kraußold has published as the third number of the "Theological Questions of the Day." The actual theme of the whole work is, according to the Erlangen journal: "It is not the exigency of circumstances, as is commonly assumed, that called forth the princely summepiscopate, but rather it was the necessity of the matter itself, which asserted itself and came into its own through the exigency of circumstances." So it reads, namely, on p. 50 of the little work. That "necessity of the matter" is supposed to be this: that the Christian authority as such, as head of a Christian state, unites in itself the power of the state along with the power of the church; only in this way does the idea of the Christian