# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1861_S228
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

228

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

What Is Reported of Us, True and False.

In Nos. 15 and 16 of the 1861 volume Pastor Münkel has furnished, in
his "Neues Zeitblatt für die Angelegenheiten der lutherischen Kirche,"
an excellent essay under the title "A Guide to Chiliasm." In it he demonstrates how the coarser and the finer chiliasm
are fanaticism and contrary to the health of faith, and he closes
with the following words:

"I can therefore only approve that the Lutheran Missourians in
America have come out so earnestly against chiliasm and have granted it no toleration. Whoever knows even a little of the stormy, sultry chiliastic atmosphere
in America will understand what trouble the
Missourians have with it, and how hard they find it to bring their congregations to some degree
into healthy air. Were they to be indulgent toward chiliasm,
they would put their whole church at stake. For
chiliasm is not only subversive of foundations; it is a whole web of
false doctrines and must necessarily exert its confusing influence upon the whole
doctrine of salvation. Add to this that in America there is less speculation
(that is, in the philosophical manner) than in Germany. People want to see the practical
results of everything and to make experiments with them upon the church,
as the many sects springing up daily show. And when
we here at home first have a completely free hand in such matters, the
spirit of fanaticism will see to it that we do not lag behind America."

Hitherto we have almost throughout carried off nothing but disapproval, as a narrow-minded
and intolerant synod, on account of our earnest and decided testimony
against chiliasm — in Germany itself from those very people who
would be genuinely and truly Lutheran. And most of all it has been held against us
that we unanimously excluded from our synodical fellowship Pastor Schieferdecker, who despite all instruction
stubbornly held fast to his chiliastic errors, sorely as it grieved all our hearts
to do so.*) The special bitterness of Pastor Löhe against us
on account of this our testimony is easy enough to explain. For in the first place
he is himself an avowed patron of chiliasm; and in the second place

*) In the Saxon Kirchen- und Schulblatt there was reported in this connection, without any basis whatever in our
synodical report, the decided untruth that the exclusion had also taken place
because Pastor S. held the opinion that toward the end there would yet be a
mass conversion of Israel. We do indeed, with our orthodox fathers, distinguish this opinion from the assertion of a still impending thousand-year
kingdom of Christ and of His people on earth, between the kingdom of grace and
that of glory — whatever coloring and embellishment this dream-kingdom may be given according to the fancy of the dreamer.
For although all chiliasts also cherish and nurse that opinion of the
mass conversion of Israel toward the end, the converse is
by no means the case. For there are acknowledged orthodox, and also older, Lutheran
teachers who likewise hold that opinion and yet decidedly reject every chiliasm, in accordance with Article 17 of the
Augsburg Confession.