# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S344
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

344 On the Real Canker of the German Church.

The chairman believed he might, in the name of the whole synod, express
its joy over this declaration and its willingness to forgive him. Another
member heartily agreed with these words of the chairman, but thought
that there was one expression which Clausen ought now expressly to
retract and could retract, namely, that he had called the pure doctrine
false. To be sure, such a retraction already lay implicit in the declaration
he had just given, and he did not wish to press him further on the point
for the moment, but would gladly withdraw this demand of his, should it
be found unsuitable; yet it would give him heartfelt joy, and he believed
it would also be to Clausen's advantage, if he could comply with this
request.

Clausen replied that this naturally followed of itself, that if he were not
certain that his own opinion was right, he likewise could not be certain
that the opposite opinion was false.

(To be concluded.)

(Contributed.)

On the Real Canker of the German Church

Pastor Brunn expresses himself as follows, with truth as pertinent as it is
open, in the "Neues Zeitblatt," No. 23:

"This is the misery and the wretchedness of our time and of our Church,
this is the root of the evil even in our Free Church. Ah, would that we
were united in doctrine! Would that we had that great "It is enough"
of the Augsburg Confession — "that God's Word be taught in harmony!"
And let us not deceive ourselves: the discord that still dominates the whole
field of our theology touches not merely inessential questions of scholarship
that scarcely affect the living body of the Church, but the most deep-reaching
principles of Christian doctrine; it concerns in particular questions
of doctrine which become so immediately practical in every renewal of
church life and reach into its innermost life — questions, indeed, without
whose sound and confessionally faithful resolution, and full clarity, no
sound building of the Church can even be conceived: I mean the question
of the Church, the preaching office, the power of the keys, and church
government.

Instead of saying anything further, I would like in closing to relate only a
few facts out of my own, deeply painful life experience. With what a
rent heart over the utter theological confusion and disruption prevailing
among us — indeed, I might say, with what a feeling of being crushed — did
I leave, three years ago, our Lutheran General Synod at Breslau, after we
had spoken and contended there for four weeks about the Church, the
preaching office, church government, and also about chiliasm and other
matters! Yet on the last day of the synod we were no further advanced
than on the first; rather, all the oppositions stood there wholly unresolved,
and the only thing I carried away with me was, at the least, the impression
of a general confusion. For it was not only the two great main parties in
the question of church constitution