# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1864_S94
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

94   Church-Related Contemporary Affairs.

driven off; his feelings were injured, his character shamefully attacked, while the devil has been given cause to laugh over this bitter strife and quarrel, which disfigures church members and harms the welfare of the church. Into these snares of the devil many an unthinking church member has fallen, and, under the influence of a blind fanaticism, has damaged the cause of Christ, disturbed his own peace, stained his Christian reputation, and undermined his usefulness in church and congregation. . . .

This is no fancy picture. In every denomination there are nowadays quite a few congregations in which such a state of affairs is found. Certain partisan-minded people, whose zeal for their political party has completely blinded their understanding and, it is to be feared, has rooted out every religious feeling and every religious principle, succeed in bringing about a division in the congregation of Christ by introducing, under the pretext of loyalty to the Union, mere party politics, and thereby causing great mischief. The church, from which all true conservatism ought to proceed, is itself thrown into disorder and divided. This souring of feeling has spread, and whole neighborhoods are at odds. Confidential intercourse is broken off. Men and women live in bitter hatred; every kind of slander, gossip, and defamation is rampant; Christian friendliness and love have vanished, and the worst passions of the human heart break forth. Many a church member and many a church council has become estranged from his pastor and his church, and through the bitter party spirit, given free rein, it even often comes to lawsuits."
C.

Politics in the Church. On this subject we must, alas, return again and again. All the punishments that those who abuse the office of the gospel for political purposes have so far experienced have not yet checked this evil that is breaking into the church; rather, this cancer only continues to eat further into it. In this respect the German Methodists outdo everyone. Just one example. In the "Apologete" of January 18 there appears a "Program of the German Preachers' Convention of the Chicago District," which will begin on May 10 of this year in the church on Sand Ridge near Blue Island, Illinois. In this program of a Methodist pastoral conference, the sixth topic is found, on which a Rev. Fr. Schuler is to submit a "written article," as follows: "What are the merits that Abraham Lincoln has earned as President of the United States — against our nation, the world, and the church? And does this entitle him to reelection?" — It is not without use to record such things. A later age would otherwise not believe that things could ever go so far. It is, to be sure, true that in the Methodist sect the fire of religious enthusiasm once peculiar to it has almost entirely burned out, so that it must now think of other means of its propagation and preservation; but whether the increasingly cooling religious body will again be supplied with living warmth in its innards by fanning the flame of political party zeal is another question. We fear from this only an all the swifter decay.

II. Abroad.

Hanover. On December 14 of last year the pre-synod here was closed by the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs. The draft of a synodal and presbyterial order submitted by the government had been adopted unanimously. The Stade Sonntagsblatt presents to its readers the following, not exactly edifying, scene from the proceedings of the pre-synod: "Volkmar cites several verses from the hymnbook, such as: 'I am a monster without you, my Savior,' etc., or the well-known: 'With your hammer of grace, knock upon the chamber of my heart — dear Jesus, kiss me,' etc. Good in themselves, and of deep meaning, these hymns are nevertheless of the kind that, in school, among small boys and girls, provoke mockery and cause astonishment in parents when the children recite and sing them at home." Uhlhorn protests against this, that hymns from