# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1862_S160
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

160 Church-Contemporary History.

well prepared? We call to mind the very disputed questions now hanging in the balance, as to whom the leadership of the Church belongs, and of what kind the right of governance is — whether of divine or of human sort. Were this event to occur now, what else could be expected than that the dispute over this question would flare up all the more, and the Church would be able to establish even less order for herself than the State has hitherto provided her? Or should one hope that the distress into which the Church falls upon the occurrence of this event would create peace? That is possible, and we must hope for it. But when we look at the churches that already stand free of the State, these furnish the proof that the onset of distress does not necessarily result in peace, and our hope is therefore not a certain one. We mean the Lutheran Church in North America and the separated Lutheran Church in Silesia. However fair their beginning was, their further course has been little refreshing. In North America a split has already occurred over the question of the position of the spiritual office, and each side refuses the other church fellowship. The Buffaloers excommunicate the Missourians, and the Missourians the Buffaloers, and in the dispute people have become so violent and fanatical that one can scarcely repeat with decency the abusive language they hurl at one another (?). The State, to be sure, does not enslave the Church; but instead they have introduced a bondage to the Symbols — indeed to the theology of a particular period — which is perhaps even worse, and they handle the Symbols in a manner just as unevangelical as it is unspiritual. Did not one synod actually say that the Symbols ought not to be interpreted according to Scripture, but Scripture according to the Symbols? Was not, a few years ago, a highly respectable man, Schieferdecker, excluded from the synodical association because he was inclined to Chiliasm, and was not his congregation, on the strength of Romans 16:17-18 ("such serve not the Lord Christ, but their own belly," etc.), called upon to exercise discipline against him according to Matthew 18? — So this, then, is the good fortune of state-churchism: that the State has hitherto furnished the Church with order — that is to say, that, despite all the countless strife and discord within the Church, it has nevertheless outwardly maintained calm, and, for all the deep and manifold inward cleavage, has by its iron arm checked the outward collapse of the whole decrepit church-edifice. In truth, Lutheran theologians who can think and write in this way ought to blush deeply and clap a hand firmly over their mouths, when the Jesuits mockingly call out to them: You crumbling and disintegrating Protestants, come now to us, among whom the strong arm of the hierarchy knows far better how to maintain the peace and unity you desire than does your wretched state power. But what, finally, are we to say to the fact that these Erlangen gentlemen professors, with a warning finger pointed at us and our condition, speak of "bondage to the Symbols"? That is truly shame upon shame. Matters have come to such a pass with these renegade sons of the Church, that the required fidelity to their Church's confession — solemnly sworn by themselves — is to them a more intolerable bondage than that with which the State outside enslaves the poor Church, and that they abhor a theology which, out of the confusion of this age, out of the chaos of countless errors, strives with all its might back toward the simplicity, fidelity, truth, and unanimity of our dear Reformation fathers and their first faithful disciples. There they must indeed look with horror upon the example of the "highly respectable" Mr. Schieferdecker. For their conscience tells them: should the Church again become free from the State's hampering embrace, and be able once more to make use of the authority granted her by God, then we too, with our true sample-card of dreadful heresy which we have brought to light, would be dragged before a tribunal, and, should we not repent, the fate of Schieferdecker would befall us as well. Hinc illae lacrymae — hence the dread of a separation of Church and State, and the horror of conditions like our own, where, God be eternal praise and thanks, discipline in doctrine is still exercised, and faithful adherence to the good confession of our dear Lutheran Church is still inexorably demanded. C.