# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1861_S128
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

128 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

[Printed as set: a stray, disconnected line intrudes here — "Members of the congregational church councils of all seven parishes of the city without their clergy" — before the sentence resumes.] ...state to full realization. Indeed, Mr. K. even maintains that by divine
right the power of the church belongs to the Christian authority (p. 46f.). And he holds these
ideas to be Reformation-Lutheran ones of genuinely German origin. The Erlangen journal
makes the important remark on this: that according to this theory "the possession of this
(church) power cannot possibly be made dependent on the personal fitness of its holder,
while it is an essential churchly principle that admission to every churchly activity should
take place only on the ground of the proven competence of the person for that same
activity."

The teaching of the Small Catechism concerning the benefit of the holy
Supper, which, as we have already noted in this year's foreword, Professor Dr. Kahnis
attacks in his treatise on the holy Supper, is likewise attacked in the January number of
the Erlangen journal by V. in O. The correspondent writes:
"What would I not give if Luther, to the question, What use, then, is such eating and
drinking? had written: '"This is shown us by bread and wine, by which
Christ imparts to us his body and his blood; namely, that in the sacrament strength-
ening and increase are given to us through union with Christ's body and life."'
Now since he did not in fact write so, it will be best that we leave the sentence in the
closer explanation given in instruction, "'This is shown — of sins,'" as it stands; and take
from what follows the correct determination that the Lord's Supper works forgiveness of
sins, life and salvation, and add at the close the further question: Why does the
sacrament work this? — Answer: Because it unites us with Christ's body and life."
It is fortunate that the newer theologians are not yet authorized to refit the dear little
catechism for the church according to their new theology. Otherwise we should get a
badly mishandled Enchiridion. But how these gentlemen reconcile their newly won
conviction with their oath upon the Symbols is to us a riddle. — It is untrue, moreover, that
Luther arrived at his teaching on the purpose of the holy Supper by understanding the
words "Given and shed for you" not of the surrender on the cross but of the distribution
in the administration of the sacrament. The Large Catechism, from which the small one
flowed, refutes this assumption. It was an altogether different principle that obliged
Luther to seek the purpose and proper benefit not in the words "This is my body," etc.,
but in the words "Given and shed for you."

Return. The founder of "the free apostolic-Christian congregations" in Norway,
Mr. G. A. Lammers, fell away from his own church as early as last November, and
afterward even entered the state church he had formerly so despised. He had long
been dissatisfied with his followers; some wished to draw the logical consequence of his
rejection of infant baptism and be baptized again, several members had to be excluded
for fornication, and one of his friends in Denmark even began to defend polygamy. It is
indeed very gratifying to see one who has erred come free of his error, and so also to
hear here that this man, who had actually become a Baptist, now "in fuller conviction
than ever before confesses the Augsburg Confession"; yet one cannot regard without
anxiety the great confusion in which he still remains, and one must especially regret that
he lays the blame more on the excesses of his followers than on himself, who first led
them astray. He has therefore certainly not yet rightly, penitently recognized his
abominable sin of false teaching and seduction, and has probably been brought to
recant more through recognizing the practical impossibility of his cause. The number of
his followers had risen only to about 900 in the whole country, and they will probably
now go their separate ways in various directions. L. L.

Statistics of the Baptists. According to the most recent count, which covers the
whole federation, that is, Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark, the membership stands
at 7,908, most of whom are in Prussia. In the last three years 3,077 persons have been
baptized, which is nearly half the total membership. If one asks the reason for so rapid
an increase in just these last three years, one need hardly doubt that the new era in
Prussia and the freedom most readily granted to the sects have contributed their share.
Prussia is working tenaciously toward becoming a little North America. The net increase
of the congregations has, however, amounted to only 2,277 persons, since exclusion and
deaths have in turn brought about a decrease among those 3,077 persons. The number
of congregations has in the same period risen from 60 to 65, and the number of
stations, or mere preaching places, from 674 to 765. It becomes ever plainer that among
the foreign sects the Baptists alone have a future in Germany, while the labor of the
Methodists, despite all their exertions, seems to be in vain, and thus far has been
attended with notable success only in Bremen and, to some extent, in Switzerland.
(Münkel's Neues Zeitblatt.)