# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1864_S285
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 285

Evangelical Lutheran Church at Philadelphia. 2. That the faculty of this theological seminary shall, for the present, consist of three professors ordinarii and a sufficient number of assistant professors (extraordinarii). Of these professors, one is to represent the German department, another the English, and a third is to teach in both languages. 3. That Dr. C. F. Schäffer, our German professor at Gettysburg, shall be regarded as one of the professors ordinarii, and that it is accordingly made the duty of the directors to transfer him from Gettysburg to Philadelphia as soon as circumstances permit. 4. That the synod now elect Dr. W. J. Mann as professor of the German, and Dr. C. P. Krauth, Jr., as professor of the English department. 5. That the synod appoint, from among our preachers in Philadelphia and its vicinity, a sufficient number of assistant professors, who shall be members of the faculty and shall teach in such branches as may be assigned to them by the board of directors."

II. Abroad.

The Constitution of the Church. On the occasion of the meeting of the Central Church Association in the province of Saxony (at Gnadau) on April 5 and 6 of this year, Pastor Ahrendts of Ilsenburg presented eight theses on church polity. They bear witness to where one has arrived after having lost the pure doctrine and yet wishing to help the church. Theses 3 through 5 read as follows: "3. 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 of this according to definite norms arising out of divine revelation and out of Christian life, is the episcopal constitution of the church. 4. This episcopal constitution has, from the days of St. Ignatius on, been regarded and preserved as the sole rightful shelter of the church. It could indeed be damaged by the arbitrariness and violence of popes and bishops, but not destroyed. It retains its value in the church for all time, just as the estates-based monarchy does in the state. 5. Even the Reformers, despite their opposition to the bearers of the episcopate in their day, found themselves, the longer the less, able to escape the conviction that without an episcopal constitution the church cannot endure in the long run."

In Meran (Tyrol), where a small chapel has long existed for the evangelical spa guests and where a permanent parish system is now to be established, the agitation is especially strong. Some time ago the spa administration had set up two terracotta figures to beautify a public square. These provoked a violent tumult, which ended with the figures being smashed to pieces by the hands of poor people, who had been persuaded that the figures represented Lutheran goddesses.

Hanover. The resolutions of the Hanoverian pre-synod concerning a new church constitution for the Hanoverian territorial church obtained the assent of the first Hanoverian chamber only with great difficulty. In the meantime, however, they have now been approved on all sides, and building will presumably now continue on the foundation laid.

Church Discipline. To those who wish to exercise no church discipline, merely in order to keep the crowd together, Pastor Vollert of Clodra near Weida, in Weimar territory, holds up the following in his paper "Gideon" of June 15: "Gideon made no attempt to keep the 9,700, still less did he use force to that end. Why, you territorial-church men, do you not let the 9,700 apostates go from you, since God indeed wishes to separate them from his church by the water, that is, by the holy office of the keys? You come to terms and make peace with them, you are anxiously concerned and at pains not to offend them, you even give way to them, only so that they will stay with you; you thus sacrifice the truth—the Lord Jesus himself—you do not dare to exercise the office of the keys, you do not dare to exclude from the congregation those who openly confess their unbelief, you lie to yourselves that they are weak in faith, people with whom one must have patience, when in fact they are strong in unbelief, of a kind that no church ought to bear; you cast your pearls before swine and the sanctuary before dogs."