# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1864_S266
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

266 Lic. Ströbel's Account of the Lutheran Doctrine of Civil Authority, as Opposed to the Calvinist.

obligated to obey a king who commands something against the Law of God, but are rebels as well, if we do obey him; just as if one wished rather to follow the edict of the governor than that of the prince, or that of the minister rather than that of the king." (p. 298.) Whoever thinks and acts otherwise does not belong to the church of God and of Christ, but to the house of Omri and of Ahab. (Micah 6:16.) — VII. But how far, now, does that "right of resistance" extend? Papists, Calvinists, and Lutherans answer unanimously only with regard to so-called passive obedience, which might more properly be described as passive disobedience and resistance toward a magistracy that commands godless things: it has been practiced by prophets, apostles, martyrs, and confessors, commanded by all faithful teachers of the church, and without it Christianity could never have reached us. It belongs among the holiest of Christian duties, is unshakably grounded in the First Commandment, and sealed by the Redeemer's own lofty example. Disputed, on the other hand, among those named above is the doctrine of active resistance, and this dispute has its ground and its explanation in fundamental differences. — VIII. Papists and Calvinists, that is to say, have in fact and in truth never gotten beyond the Old Testament: the New Testament is to them only the continuation of the Old. From this is explained, as is so much else, the political stance of both. Christ's sayings—"My kingdom is not of this world!—Who made me a judge?—Put up thy sword into its sheath!" etc.—appear to them as insoluble riddles; despite every assurance to the contrary, they cannot conceive of state and church as two independently existing orders side by side; quite involuntarily they set the state-organized church above the church-organized state, and make of the two a world-empire after the pattern of the Jewish theocracy. Herr v. P. has demonstrated this fully; he finds in the Old-Testament-like fundamental character of Calvinism (Popery does not come into particular consideration here), in the theocratic ideas and creations of the "great Genevan Reformer" and his associates, the ultimate ground of explanation for "political French Calvinism," especially as regards the doctrine of the active "right of resistance." — IX. From the very beginning the evangelical Reformation in Germany insisted with the utmost earnestness on rightly distinguishing Christ's kingdom from the kingdoms of the world, and on not making the latter into continuations of the Old Testament theocracy. ("They teach that it is lawful for Christians to judge matters by imperial and other laws now in force, because the gospel does not overthrow civil government but rather especially requires that it be observed;" — "nor does the gospel introduce new laws concerning the civil estate, but commands that we obey the laws now in force, whether enacted by heathens or by others. For Carlstadt was raving mad, who would impose upon us the judicial laws of Moses.") Because the evangelicals, even in political matters, constantly keep Christ's spiritual kingdom in view, they accordingly teach, concerning the active