# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1861_S304
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

304 Of the Present Controversy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia.

should. Second, when he is, however, in a place where Christians are
present who have equal power and right with him, there he shall not push
himself forward, but let himself be called and drawn out, so that he
preaches and teaches in the place and by the commission of the others." —

Of the Present Controversy in the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Prussia.

In the Erlangen journal for Protestantism and Church (the July and
August issues) we find the following account of the actual subject around
which the controversy named in the heading turns. It reads there:

"If we ask about the actual subject of the controversy, which is not
so very easy to make out, since the voices run together rather confusedly,
it turns on the question whether one can concede to the Upper Church
Council the position it claims, while the opponents say of this position
that it rests on a false doctrine of the church, of church order, and of
church government. To the essence of the church, they say, the Upper
Church Council reckons an organism that is also externally visible,
articulated through various offices and orders. Connected with this,
there is talk, they say, of church laws which demand obedience by virtue
of divine authority. Finally: that a distinct office of church government
has been instituted by God for the church, which may claim obedience de
jure divino (cf. Lutherisches Synodalblatt, published by R. Lohmann,
Stargard 1861). All these propositions are labeled by the opponents as
unevangelical and chiliastic. And we too call them unevangelical. We
already call unevangelical the assertion that Christ himself instituted an
externally visible organism. Unevangelical is the other assertion, that
church laws may claim obedience by virtue of divine authority exactly as
the Gospel claims such obedience. Unevangelical, finally, we also call the
assertion that Christ instituted a distinct office of church government. If
the Upper Church Council really says this, then the struggle is very well
justified — indeed then, in our conviction, a break with it is required; for
in that case the Upper Church Council comes into contradiction with the
confession of the church, which says: satis est consentire de doctrina
evangelii et administratione sacramentorum.*) It then reckons to the
essence of the church still other things besides pure doctrine and the right
administration of the sacraments.

Everything now depends on the question whether the Upper Church
Council

—————

*) "This is enough for the true unity of the Christian church: that the Gospel be
preached there in conformity with a pure understanding, and that the sacraments be
administered in agreement with the divine Word." Augsburg Confession, Art. VII.