# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1861_S232
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

232 What Is Reported of Us, True and False.

pang in the belly, because "the Missourian sect" receives the same praise as the orthodox Buffalo
Synod) Prof. Fritschel now proceeds to point out also
the differences between these two building synods. In this characterization — to express myself
for once in the fashionable manner — the contributor has succeeded admirably in
taking account of the present German theological taste
and in making his gift so much the more palatable to theological tongues. For it is, as is well known, agreeable to this taste that
in the field of theology everything has its justification, whether it agree with
the Word of God as that Word reads, or not. Thus the synod of
Buffalo has its justification in "laying the chief value and emphasis"
upon church government and obedience, in that the church
appears to it throughout under the aspect of an organism falling within the sphere of visibility, and its predominant interest is directed to the formation
of a churchly system after the manner of the 17th century; and in that the
church government, consisting of the members of the ministerium, with
the senior at its head, forms the highest court for decision in all
critical situations." But not a word is said that this
view of church and church government has no justification whatever upon the
ground and soil of the gospel and of the Lutheran confession founded upon it,
but that it is the Old Testament legal, or rather
papistic hierarchical, view, which is as opposed to the evangelical view
as earth is to heaven.

Of the synod of Missouri, now, true and erroneous things are mingled together in
Prof. Fritschel's contribution, without the latter — which of course the contributor
regards as true and really existing — receiving any censure from him; rather it seems to him, after the
German-theological manner, also to have its justification.

Now as to what is true about us, Prof. Fritschel says:
"The interest here is directed chiefly to the setting forth and preservation
of the pure Lutheran doctrine in all its consequences, while
that for the order and shaping of churchly relations remains rather
secondary and recedes. With particular attention
the rights of the congregations and of their individual members are brought out and
emphasized, and with a kind of jealousy it is watched over that these may be exercised
uninjured and unimpaired on every side.
The office appears from this standpoint (there is therefore yet another standpoint,
equally or better justified, as for example that of the Buffalo and Iowa Synod
themselves) as a transfer of rights originally residing in the congregation and its
individual members; the congregation itself is the "highest court,"
over against which the synod, consisting of representatives of the clerical and the lay estate (we know,
according to God's Word, nothing of two such distinct or even different
estates within the common Christian estate, but call
them teachers and hearers, or otherwise), stands only as an advisory
body."