# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

The German Reformed Churches in the United States. As a characterization of them, the following, which a correspondent of the Reformed "Evangelist" writes in its number of Dec. 5 of last year about a certain Dr. Harbach, may serve. There it says, among other things, as follows: Dr. Harbach has now been elected to become theological professor at Mercersburg, and since Dr. Schaff is traveling to Germany, the entire direction of that seminary, so important for our church, will fall to him and Dr. Nevin. This news has touched the undersigned very painfully, especially since I know Dr. H. well as a former fellow student. Dr. Harbach was, as a student, always strictly moral, amiable in company, had much humor, also showed much taste for music and poetry, to which he devoted a large part of his time. As a student he was rather irregular with respect to his studies, so that he distinguished himself in no theological discipline. He took part almost never in prayer meetings and devotional hours. When, at a revival in Mercersburg where cautious use was made of the anxious bench, Dr. Nevin came out against it and, as they say, threw the baby out with the bathwater, student Harbach was the only student who from the outset fully agreed with Dr. Nevin. He was likewise never well disposed toward Calvinism; in short, his whole practical and theological position was such that we could not tell from it whether he would take personal salvation — his own as well as that of others — seriously. The side of the personal appropriation of salvation never came to the fore with him. In general, little was ever expected of him for the good of the church. Nevertheless he has made a considerable name for himself in the church and was recently elected professor. In order to rescue the church from the spiritual death into which it had unfortunately sunk, use was made by some of things foreign and enthusiastic. In order to work against the supposed or actual extreme of unchurchliness, the Mercersburg school fell into the opposite extreme, namely that of high-churchliness. The ideas that proceeded in this direction from Mercersburg — and which Mercersburg had learned entirely elsewhere (for Roman, Puseyite, and royal Prussian high-churchliness are all older) — Dr. Harbach popularized, and sought also to bring into practical application, whereby, to be sure, his congregation in Lancaster came near the brink of ruin. Thus he became one of the oldest and first practical champions of high-churchliness. Since he is an honest nature, he went about it more honestly, more openly and more recklessly than others of this tendency, whose chief strength lies in intrigue. This was bound to secure him respect and standing with his party. Several years ago I met Dr. Harbach at the General Synod in Akron, O. There he delighted several of his like-minded associates in Ohio with a peculiar sermon, in which he openly and freely expressed his own and his party's views of religious life. With bitter scorn and wit he scourged the notion of a sudden and swift change, showed the organic, gradual development of all life by many examples from nature, and argued that the Christian life too must bow to these general laws of nature. The nature of sin, the power of corruption and of Satan, and the immediate efficacy of the Holy Spirit were ignored. In a private discussion he warms up the old Roman objection against the divine authority of Holy Scripture in matters of faith, according to which Scripture is subordinate to the church. When the question of establishing a mission house came up, Dr. Harbach was one of its bitterest opponents. Naturally he thereby made himself very popular with the high-church party of our own church, and now he is to be respectably rewarded for these his faithful services. We grant him the little honor from our hearts, but we would gladly have spared the church the disgrace; but it is, after all, a basic law in the kingdom of God that the tares must ripen alongside the wheat. Dr. Harbach will unpack his errors freely and openly; in this respect he must in the end render essential service to the truth, and is much dearer to us in the professor's chair than many friends-of-all-the-world who are high-church among the high-church party, but who, among believing, genuinely Reformed Christians, give their assent to our biblical principles concerning church, sacraments, penitence, conversion and faith in Jesus Christ."