# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1863_S126
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

126 Church-Contemporary-History.

Geneva. The German Reformed church here has, on the motion of the well-known
Pastor Wagner, resolved by a majority to abolish the Apostles' Creed and to form a church
of reason free of all dogmas. So we read in the Allgemeine Kirchenzeitung of December 28
of last year.

Death. On December 16 of last year there died at Eisleben the superintendent,
Dr. theol. Rudolf Stier.

Dr. Fr. Delitzsch, as already mentioned earlier, has since the beginning of this year
stepped into the editorship of the Guericke journal in the place of the late Dr. Rudelbach.
His first essay as co-editor, in the first quarterly issue of this year of the said journal,
bears the heading: "Luther's Bible translation must be improved." This strikes us as no
favorable omen for what the Lutheran church may expect from the learned professor's
collaboration on so widely circulated a theological journal. — In the same issue there
appears, as an appendix, a critique of Kahnis's dogmatics from the pen of that same
scholar, under the heading "For and against Kahnis," in which, however, the former does
not deny that in Kahnis's dogmatics "both in the field of biblical theology and in that of
dogmatics proper, no few results are advanced with audacious daring, through which
tenable positions are surrendered to the adversaries of ecclesiastical theology as
untenable, and even in part the foundations of the common Christian and especially the
Lutheran faith have been shaken." (p. 1.) "The results thus obtained affect not merely
the scriptural grounding of the dogmas of the Trinity and of the Holy Supper, but their
very substance." (p. 2.) "The author falls back into that Arian ἦν ὅτε οὐχ ἦν [there was
when he was not], the overcoming of which cost the ancient church so much sweat and
blood and tears." "He thus falls into a subordinationism which threatens the unity of the
triune Godhead and consistently puts in the place of the one triune God, a God and two
under-gods." (p. 23.)

Hanover. As we learn from the Neues Zeitblatt of January 9, Dr. Münkel does not
conceal the disastrous significance of the withdrawal of the royal ordinance concerning the
introduction of an orthodox catechism. He writes:

"What, then, does the proposition mean in this context, that the king does not wish
to constrain consciences and therefore will leave the catechism free? It means, in fact,
freedom of conscience, of faith, and of doctrine — mark well — not merely in the state, but
within the Lutheran church itself; for in fact not only the catechism but also the doctrine
has been set free, and it cannot be otherwise, since the catechism, as the opponents
themselves acknowledge now that freedom has been won, contains the pure Lutheran
doctrine. The ordinance has done still more to give this fact a footing, for it has neglected
two important points which were indispensable for the protection of the church. It has
not declared that, despite the abolition of the mandate, the pure doctrine remains in sole
validity, and it has not ventured to censure the false doctrines that have become vocal, and
unbelief. The stormers of the catechism could understand the ordinance only as though
their outrage were a justified struggle of conscience against compulsion of faith. They
have come off free and justified; whereas the friends and defenders of the catechism are
given over to the fury of the agitated masses, and have not only had to pay dearly for the
king's gift, but have not even been able to make proper use of it."

Münkel reports further:

"If the outcome of the struggle in the south of the kingdom, in the principality of
Göttingen, is the most unfavorable, and has brought back peace through what appears to
be a fairly complete defeat, then in the remaining provinces a number of congregations
have on the other hand held firm bravely and have unanimously adopted and retained the
new catechism. That this says a very great deal will be understood by anyone who
recalls to mind what a mad spirit of delusion had poured itself out over the land and
turned the heads even of the well-disposed. In the midst of the time of the storm one did
not hold it possible that even