# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S67
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Critique of the Report of the Seventh Synod of the [Church] Emigrated from Prussia, etc. 67

God does not give it, men do not transfer it; it is therefore a power stolen through shameful revolution, a true robbery of the church. —

In the "Opening Address" Pastor Grabau speaks of the concept of a synod, and says: "A synod is not the true church itself, but a number chosen from among its members, who are properly called to it. The calling, however, intends a representation of the church, not of the heads, still less of the many opinions in the heads; but rather of the one and common faith of the church."

What, then, is the church, if it is not "heads," that is, human beings who are bought by Christ's blood and, through faith, are members of Christ's body? Where does this contemptuous designation of Christians as "heads" come from? Did the holy Paul also call his Corinthians, Galatians, etc. "heads"? Is Grabau not a "head"? Are the reverend provosts and the other clergymen not "heads"? Or are their ordained heads perhaps better than common Christian heads? Do these common people have only stupid heads fit at most for obedience, subject-heads, while they themselves have clever, wise, anointed ruler-heads? — To say that a synod represents the faith of the church and not its members, "the heads," is a thought that could indeed spring only from a very clever head. Here Grabau again perpetrates a sophistical deception with the word "representation," one that is truly masterful of its kind. For a synod does indeed represent the faith of the church — that is quite true — but that is its business, not the synod itself.*) The synod is always only a representation of the church, of the Christians, and that these Christians have heads is something they cannot help. Moreover, at the synods themselves it is always only "heads" that are assembled, and often precisely the most dangerous ones for the faith of the church. That is an undeniable fact. Grabau cannot impress this ingenious definition of a synod deeply enough upon his fellow synod members; on page 6 he repeats it once more: "for this reason the assessor judges as well, who alone are to judge according to the Word of God, may indeed represent the church out of whose need they were called and assembled, but not the heads and opinions of those by whom they were sent to the council."

How, then, does Grabau imagine such a non-representation of the heads? We do not live here, as in Germany, in territorial state churches, where every citizen of the state, whether believing or not, whether a lover of the Word or a public despiser of it, may choose representatives for the synod. For such a council, sent by so-called "national/popular churches," is as a rule a representation of the world, the enemy of the church. And I can well understand how devout men in Germany, who sought the church's welfare upon

*) Here too Grabau commits the fallacy of equivocation; for since "to represent" means not only to stand in someone's place but also to profess or confess something, he sets the representation of persons and of the faith against one another, and in this way throws his sharp-witted fellow confrères — into confusion.