# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S222
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

222 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

Church Constitution. At the Gnadau pastoral assembly, Pastor Ahrendts of
Ilsenburg proposed eight theses on church constitution. The second reads: "What
holds of all corporate life (thus also of lodge societies and hunting clubs?!) — that
it cannot survive unless it is permeated by the fourth commandment as the law
immanent to it — holds also of the highest and holiest corporation, of the
Christian church." The third: "The order that has grown up in the church on the
basis of the fourth commandment, whereby spiritual overseers or bishops are set
jure divino over the presbyters or pastors, and the presbyters in turn administer
their pastoral office jure divino, all this according to definite norms arising from
divine revelation and from Christian life, is the episcopal constitution of the
church." The fourth: "This episcopal constitution has been regarded and
preserved, from the days of holy Ignatius on, as the one rightful roof sheltering
the church. It could be damaged, but not destroyed, by the arbitrary will and
violence of popes and bishops. It retains its worth in the church for all time,
just as the estates-based monarchy does in the state." The sixth: "It is false to
suppose that the Reformers, and Luther and Melanchthon in particular, counted
the constitution of the church among the indifferent matters of adiaphora, etc."
— These theses, thoroughly mistaken both in substance and in form, Herr Dr.
Wangemann has judged worthy, dignified, and important enough to include as
part of his "Monatsschrift." — B.

Peace in the Union. In the little town of Bahn in Hinterpommern, the Union
had been in effect since 1818, and with it the united formula of distribution at
Holy Communion: "Christ says: This is my body," had been introduced. In the
year 1851 Superintendent Petrich there wanted to restore the Lutheran formula
of distribution, and would indeed have carried it through, since he had several
respected members on his side, had not his Union-minded fellow pastor opposed
him. Since two formulas of distribution thus came into use, the Consistory,
with the approval of the Supreme Church Council, ordered that the Lutheran
formula alone be used. In the year [18]60 the parish church council was
introduced in Bahn. This council resolved, by a vote of 5 to 3, that the united
formula of distribution should be restored. The Consistory then took the side of
the parish church council and provisionally forbade the Lutheran formula of
distribution. Indignant at this, the Lutheran part of the congregation threatened
to withdraw, and Superintendent Petrich abstained for more than three-quarters
of a year from administering Holy Communion. The Supreme Church Council
had the matter investigated on the spot by General Superintendent Hoffmann
on November 10 of last year, and then informed the parish church council in
Bahn that things should remain with the united formula of distribution
customary before Petrich's time, but that for the Lutheran-minded minority a
quarterly communion service with the Lutheran formula of distribution should
be held. Thus the Supreme Church Council itself brought about a Lutheran
separation, with a separate communion table, within the Union. The united
majority in the congregation was therefore not satisfied with this decision. The
second preacher, Steinbrück, immediately lodged a protest against it, on the
ground that it was an encroachment on his official right. The city councilmen
met together and resolved that this division within the congregation had no
lawful standing. And at a public assembly 300 to 400 men joined together into
an association, signed a protest, and pledged themselves "to attend no longer
either the confession held by Superintendent Petrich or any sermon of his
before Holy Communion." This protest, together with a "petition," was sent to
the Supreme Church Council. The petition reads, word for word: "In the name
of God and of the Savior, in the name of our transfigured Christian kings
Frederick William III and IV, in the name of the most holy Christian love as it
is taught and preached in the Gospels by the apostles, we beg, urgently and
obediently, that a Most Reverend Consistory would, by the speedy and gracious
removal of the decree of February 4 (which ordered quarterly Lutheran
communion), lift the unbearable burden of this unhappy discord from our
heavily oppressed hearts, help us at last to our long-desired peace, and grant us
new joy in church life now and forever