# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1864_S317
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Affairs. 317

we do not mean that the whole great communion bearing this name is to be judged by
what has been communicated above. We believe rather, and know it too, that there are
many excellent and honorable men in it who hold to the Lutheran confession, so far as
one can in such a mixed communion. We also read with joy in the same
"Lutheraner" "" 'that in recent years, in the General Synod, more and more voices have
been raised for a return to the Lutheran faith.' "" May God indeed help, on this side
and on that, toward a right separation and toward the union of all that truly belongs
together; may he help his poor Lutheran Church!"
The Prussian Lutheran Church. Pastor Frohwein too, at Übedell, has,
after having already been suspended for a year, been dismissed by the Supreme Church
Council [Oberkirchen-Collegium]. Together with him the congregation of Persanzig, which
had elected him as pastor. Dr. Münkel reports: "Worst of all has it gone for Pastor
Frohwein at Übedell. He had, oddly enough, been put the express question whether he
would also refrain from publicly rejecting the doctrine of the O.-K.-C. as false. Frohwein
felt compelled in conscience to answer no, since his office required him to warn against
false doctrine. For this his superintendent suspended him from office, with the
aggravation that from October to May half of the poor man's meager salary was
withheld."
Wollin. Pastor Zöller, who has renounced Breslau, writes to the "Freimund":
"Fronmüller (who has been made pastor of those members of the Wollin congregation
who wish to remain with Breslau) and several newly elected wardens have sued me and
the old wardens for disturbance of possession, on the ground that we did not hand over
the church to them (although the congregation had, by 150 votes to 9, renounced
Breslau). Fronmüller has won! The congregation has lost its entire church property. The
court simply says: according to the General Concession, the congregations are those that
belong to Breslau; the O.K.C. has officially certified that Fronmüller is the interim pastor
and forms, together with the newly elected wardens, the church council that is to
represent the congregation. The local Wollin congregation has already, through one of its
wardens, purchased a plot of land for close to 2000 thalers. — — We would gladly have
made do with a modest rented room, but in the small town of Wollin none is to be had;
therefore we must build, and indeed as simply and modestly as possible." — —
Renunciation in Hanover. Under this heading Dr. Münkel writes in his
Neues Zeitblatt of July 15 as follows: "Half a year has now passed since the issuing of
the new church law concerning the renunciation formula at baptism, and perhaps this
period is already long enough to furnish material for a judgment. At the pre-synod,
warning voices were raised that the new formula would pour oil on the fire, whereas the
church government's intention and view was to pour oil on the troubled waves of the sea
and to calm the storm. A public discussion of the new law has taken place in two
papers, in the Hanoverian Landeszeitung and in the Hermannsburg Missionsblatt. The
latter has most decisively rejected the new law, because it imposes a denial upon the
pastor. One could have not two pennies' worth of respect for a pastor who goes along
with that. The conclusion would be correct if the denial lay not on the side of the
sponsors but on the side of the pastor — to whom, however, the confession in the new
baptismal formula is not forbidden but rather put into his mouth. Much closer at hand
would be the question whether such denying sponsors ought to be admitted to baptism
and the Lord's Supper at all, from which the further question would then grow, whether
it has not long been the right and duty of a respectable pastor to exclude from church
fellowship those who deviate, in one or several or in most of the fundamental doctrines of
the Gospel, and deny the same. The question, briefly put, would then be whether
territorial church or separation. Besides, the Hanoverian territorial