# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S352
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

352                    Church and Contemporary History.

deputies to elect separately. Some had looked forward to these with a certain apprehension, partly because we still have a good stock of rationalists and undecided men, partly because for a year everything had been done to bring them into a beleaguered position and to expose them to public displeasure, distrust, and scorn. Finally the Zeitung für Norddeutschland gave the congregations an intelligible hint that they should suitably keep the clergy occupied before the election. Nevertheless, only two elections have, it seems, gone amiss. In the little territory of Hadeln, with sixteen preachers, the former president of the Celle 'Volkskirchentag' — Pastor Pfaff — was elected, an election that might easily have been made doubtful had not a pastor stayed away without cause. Among those elected we find names that we had wished for, and that we now greet with joy. Pastor Ernst, against whom strong efforts had been made from above to keep him away from the synod, has been elected at Achim, since he could not be carried through in Hanover. We thank his electors for having thus saved this strength for the synod. We cannot bring ourselves to sympathize with the policy of leaving the Celle party free room for their most extreme people and paving the way for them, while at the same time urging the clergy to elect cautious, yielding, and if possible colorless men. Finally, several consistorial members have also been elected; they will make up about a fourth part of the clergy's representation. That is rather much, when we consider that the government is in any case represented by sixteen persons, so that the representation of the government is thereby strengthened at the expense of the representation of the clergy... The second remark is this, that the clergy indeed stand, in great majority, on the side of orthodoxy. In several electoral districts attempts had been made to elect clergy from the Celle party's circle of friends and relations. To be sure, Baurschmidt seems to have found scarcely a patron; instead, Superintendent Thilo and the city preacher Diestelmann were put forward. They have, however, remained in a decided minority, although for the latter even a consistorial councillor voted. Clergy of firm churchly stamp, on the other hand, have been elected with a majority or a large majority. What this means for the state of the Lutheran church in the land may be seen from this. Not only among the great majority of the clergy, but also in the congregations, it still has roots enough that, despite the year's diligent labor, could not be dug out. We think here too of that estate which the election law has, undeservedly, stripped of its churchly standing, although it is of the most essential influence for the service of the church. If matters stand everywhere with the parish schoolteachers as they do, for instance, in the duchy of Bremen-Verden, it would be still less comprehensible how they could have been allowed to vote as laymen along with the congregations, where their voice was lost. This estate has raised itself so much that it surely deserves rather more consideration. — We thus stand at the threshold of the pre-synod, which, as is said, is to be convened after Michaelmas, if God does not in the meantime send other weather. Let no one fail to recognize the importance of its task. It is to decide on the constitution of the church, and to lay the first foundation for future times. But the constitution of the church is not so indifferent a matter that the church's vital nerve could remain untouched by it. Somehow doctrine must come into consideration. To be sure, we have been reassured that the doctrinal question is to be wholly excluded from the synod. If only that were possible! But it is not possible for the very reason that the constitution must necessarily be measured against doctrine, especially against the doctrine of the church. One cannot cut a coat for the church without taking her measure. It is even less possible, because the synod is to decide on catechisms, hymnals, and liturgy. But catechisms, hymnals, and liturgy reach deep into doctrine; consequently the synod, too, will have to stand in some relation to doctrine."