# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S352
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

352 Church Contemporary News.

first to clothe it with flesh and blood, to breathe into the dead form the
living spirit of Christian piety, discipline, and morals." — It is truly
sad that even men so wise as the theologians of Germany are supposed to
be commit the perversity of first making a constitution and only then
wanting to "breathe the living spirit" into it. That God can indeed do —
first form a body and then breathe spirit into it — but not man. If men
would ape God in this, they resemble those provincial townsmen who built
a building without windows and then wanted to carry the light in afterward
in sacks.

Baden. Accordingly, the following is written to the Berlin Evangelical
Church Gazette: "How different, six years ago, was the whole public mood
and current, in every field, but especially the ecclesiastical, from what
it is today! Many minds had, through the sad events of the revolutionary
years, come to more serious thoughts; the memory of the bitter fruits of
unbelief still lived fresh in the memory of rulers and ruled alike; people
still stood under the feeling that it was necessary to build on an
eternal foundation and to return to the choked-up wellsprings of life —
and so every effort on behalf of the faith and the building up of the
Church of Christ then had a far more favorable footing. The proposals of
the Upper Church Council at that time naturally also had their
liberal-minded opponents, but on the whole people expected a
reconstruction, in doctrine and culture, on the old foundations, and
because the general current was more favorable to faith, even the
wavering, for instance in elections, were carried along and gave truth
the honor. Add to this that in the year 1855 the Evangelical inhabitants
of the land were all under the impression that the sovereign wished a
decisive turn back to the old faith and had, in that spirit, appointed an
authority. All the constellations have now, in the year 1861, become
quite different. The spirit of independence has since made mighty
strides and has been deliberately fostered; unbelief, which for a time
was tame and modest, has again stepped boldly onto the field of battle
and now looks about, insolent and drunk with victory, for its opponents."
Here is a new proof in fact that, where men build on the basis of the
Union instead of returning to the foundations of the old orthodox church,
the Union settles like a mildew upon the fresh blossoms of the seed of
the Holy Spirit and makes them wither.

The Prussian Lutheran Church. The Upper Church Council has not
consented to the requested calling of the General Synod to an
extraordinary session. Ehlers writes: "The Upper Church Council wants no
synod! If, according to its will, no such synod now comes about, then it
remains plaintiff and judge in one person. But to whom, then, are those
to turn who feel themselves aggrieved by the proceedings of the O.K.C.
since the last synod?!" — We read further, in Ehlers's new paper: "In
Magdeburg, since Pastor Wolf's withdrawal from the Upper Church Council,
there now exist two congregations, in that the few members who did not
follow Pastor Wolf are recognized by the O.K.C. as the Evangelical
Lutheran congregation of Magdeburg, and are served by Pastor Lochte of
Sangerhausen. — As a result of the notice which the O.K.C. gave to the
government at Magdeburg of Pastor Wolf's withdrawal, his suspension has
been made known in the (Royal) official gazette. Pastor Räthjen has
likewise been suspended from office by the O.K.C., because he renounced
it. Pastor Dr. Schröder has laid down his office, because he feared that
some of his parishioners might follow him out of mere personal
attachment, without having the necessary conviction of the matter at
stake." (A strange reason for laying down an office received from God!)
"He writes: 'Ah, there would long since have been peace in the church, if
only, first, the synodical resolutions — mere human ordinances — had been
set aside, and, second, if the gentlemen of the O.K.C. had laid down the
power, entrusted to them by the church yet contrary to God's Word, which
they hold.'" The followers of Löhe stand, as Meinel reports, "on the
whole more on Diedrich's side than on that of the O.K.C., and censure the
latter's violent measures against Diedrich. They wish, for church
polity, complete freedom, and in particular also for the reshaping of
various constitutional relations, so that the whole weight is laid on the
unity of doctrine." The latter is a declaration quite unexpected from
followers of Löhe, with which they break their own staff over themselves.
It is most gratifying that so serious a struggle is now being waged
within the Prussian Lutheran Church against those who maintain that
there exists in the church a God-given power in matters indifferent
(adiaphora), to which one owes obedience for the sake of its office. A
struggle is here repeating itself in Germany which we, over here, have
already had to fight for years against Grabau.

Death. On Aug. 10 of this year, Privy Councilor Dr. Stahl died at Bad
Brückenau near Kissingen, known as a champion of the Lutherans within the
Prussian state church. —

— From Freiburg it is written to the Allgemeine Kirchenzeitung under
date of July 10: Word has just now reached us here that Professor
Gfrörer has died in Carlsbad.