# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S72
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

true congregation. And the church, the body of Christ, is indeed a public joining-together, a "public churchly belonging-together." That is the wisdom that "the head" of the Senior Ministerii brings to light, and instills in his fellow synod members.

From page 17 on, the actual proceedings are communicated. Pastors Müller, Habel, Schwankowsky, and Grätz had fallen into dispute with Grabau over a matter of the ban (notoriously a chief piece of official business among the Buffaloers); they accused him of partiality and were minded to secede. They also drew up "seven theses," the discussion of which forms the main subject of the proceedings. We wish to reproduce these theses here, and then also to pass a little judgment ourselves on Grabau's assessment and refutation of them.

Thesis 1: "That God the Lord has ordained no human government in his church, and also will not suffer that in the church anyone at all, whether he be preacher or layman, should seek authority over his fellow Christians, or that anyone should call his fellow Christians lord and master, or allow himself to be so called by others."

Against this thesis, says Grabau, nothing would need to be said, "if it had the necessary clarity." Grabau now supplies that clarity for it — that is, he wraps a thesis that is in itself entirely clear and simple in such an unctuous obscurity that in the end the questioners no longer even know what thesis they actually asserted, and say "yes!" to the answering of a question they never asked at all. — Grabau says: one must separate from the concept of "human government" the "politico-worldly view and the Roman-spiritualistic view"; otherwise "one could not have Christian church courts in consistories, ministries, synods, etc. in accordance with the Word of God." That is the short sense of the long sentences. The gentlemen of the synod found this explanation "entirely correct." All that is entirely correct is that they wanted to catch the fox — but he was cleverer than they, smelled a rat, went around the trap, and slipped away from them with inward mocking laughter — for the thesis is not at all about whether one may have church courts, etc.; who doubts that? Rather, it is about whether God has ordained a human government in his church, whether church courts, ministries, etc. are ordained by God or not. How cleverly Grabau circles around this question! First he says one must separate false notions from the concept of "human government"; but then there would still remain a rightly understood "human government in the church, ordained by God." So he takes yet another step further back from the dangerous trap and says: one "may," indeed, in accordance with our symbols and the old church orders, have church courts in consistories, etc. "Dearest Senior!" his fellow synod members should have said, "do not go hunting shadows with us, and do not treat us quite so much like foolish boys. We are surely not asking whether