# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. K. K. Münkel's Assessment of the Work: The Right Form, etc. 203

it also creates everything that is godly and Christian: toll to whom toll is due, honor to whom honor is due, order where order is due." —

Thus far we would be in complete and hearty agreement with Dr. Münkel's assessment. In what follows, however, he now raises two objections whose truth and justice we cannot grant. He says: "The recognition which we believe we must accord our Missourians in what precedes does not prevent us from recognizing the deficiencies which the Waltherian book here under discussion in particular brings to light, although we would be doing wrong to lay these deficiencies, without further ado, to the charge of the whole Missourian church constitution as well. — We must, first of all, very much regret that Walther, almost throughout, confines himself nearly to the statement of brief theses, and has taken pains to give their entire development and execution almost only in citations from Luther and the ancients. Much therefore remains undiscussed which would be thoroughly desirable for a satisfying conviction of the truth of the assertions put forward, for demonstrating their inner agreement with the principles of pure doctrine, and finally also for a full insight into the constitutional structure that Walther wishes to depict for us. The proof-texts from Luther and the fathers, especially on points that lay far from their contemporary sphere of life — for example, as regards free congregational assemblies, synodical association, etc. — are in fact too meager and isolated to be relied upon alone, or to yield from them any at all satisfying explanation of the matter. It corresponds to the actual state of affairs in the Missouri Synod, among other things, when Walther disposes of the entire relationship of the local congregation to the synod, or to the larger church association, with the brief words that 'the individual congregation should be ready to unite with the Evangelical Lutheran congregations of its country.' The whole manner and shaping of such a union, the mutual rights and duties arising from such a union between synod and congregation — all this finds no adequate mention and remains exposed to the most manifold misinterpretations. Yet the Missourians possess precisely a very well-ordered synodical arrangement, and their synod by no means lacks for general oversight and visitations of all the congregations of its association through its president, reports by the latter before the synod, the settlement of existing complaints and disputes brought before the synod, etc. And even though the latter does not happen in a hierarchical manner — the synod calling itself merely an 'advisory' one, and abstaining from all law-making — it nevertheless forms the firm bond of a unified order, oversight, and general direction of the whole synodical body. More significant still, however, must it appear when Walther, in the picture he wishes to give us of the right form of a free Evangelical Lutheran local congregation, entirely omits to distinguish the principial and essential from the non-essential, but instead gives room for the suspicion that the congregational structure he sketches is meant, in all — even the smallest — respects,