# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1863_S223
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Current Events. 223

—believing age. The Consistory and the Ministry of Worship give way to the enemies of our confessions in their rescripts in a lamentable manner. This makes the latter ever bolder. Men who, because of their divergent opinions, were under investigation as recently as a year ago now lift up their heads, together with their following. There is no longer any talk of rendering them harmless. The investigation is quashed, and they are even commended for their zeal, even while one wishes, in the same breath, that they might yet come to a better understanding. So it could happen that last Wednesday (April 22) the avowed opponents of orthodoxy — sixty to seventy pastors and about six hundred delegates of the congregations — held an assembly in a church in Celle, and were permitted, by renewed petitions, to bring to bear upon the government the pressure deemed necessary. The famous orientalist Ewald of Göttingen proposed there a union with all the evangelical churches of Germany. Schenkel and others have devoted a letter to this strange church convention, applauded it, and proclaimed victory. Lutheranism is now truly in danger of its life. Yet what is this but the mist clearing away from a harm that has long been present? It was, after all, always there; only now does it become manifest. If only the sincere confessors, through this victory of their oppressors, are driven ever more and more into the struggle, and come to esteem martyrdom a greater honor than the sunshine of royal favor, then there is still gain in it."

From the German papers we further take the following notices.

Pastor Sulze in Osnabrück, who, as we reported earlier, was under investigation for an anti-Christian rationalism, has at last, toward the end of March, received his verdict — namely, that the charge against him of unchristian doctrine has been dismissed; indeed, in a letter of twenty-one pages his "zealous pastoral care, together with his services to the church life of Osnabrück," is mentioned with praise, with admonitions and wishes appended that God would enlighten him and clear up his errors hitherto. Sulze has, however, also shown himself grateful for this favor of the Hanoverian church government, in that at a demonstration arranged in his honor he publicly declared: "the church government in its present form shall and must cease." While such men as Sulze are now being reinstated, a man like Regierungsrath Wyneken, a man of decided character, has been removed from the Consistory and from Osnabrück and transferred to Ilsfeld. — Archdeacon Ebert in Dannenberg was accused before the Consistory and Ministry of insisting, at baptisms, that the godparents renounce the devil. The Ministry decided that the parents might have their children baptized elsewhere, where one need not renounce the devil, and authorized the Archdeacon to issue letters of dismissal. Ebert, however, found it questionable to issue such certificates, presumably because he felt that in doing so an indirect permission might be seen, on his part, to baptize even without renunciation. What happens? The people apply anew to the Ministry, and it now grants the certificate of permission to have the child baptized by another pastor, itself. — Dr. Münkel writes further, under date of April 10: "Most of all, heads, pens, and tongues are occupied with the coming synod, which is to form the second main division of the Passion-history of our land. The Commission for establishing the pre-synod has not yet completed its work. As one hears, five members — v. Trampe, Diestelmann, Neubourg, Ehrenfeuchter, and Herrmann (Prof.) — stand on the Left; five others — C.-R. Uhlhorn, Petri, v. d. Beck, Gossel, and Durlach — on the Right; and while the latter seek to avert the possible harm of the synod, the former see in a timely synod a blessing for our Church."

Who Is to Blame for the Rift in the Hanoverian State Church? This question is answered by Dr. Münkel in his Neues Zeitblatt of April 3, among other things, as follows: "If anyone at all is to be held accountable for the rift that has occurred, then certainly the government cannot be excepted from it. If it wishes to have a state—