# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1859_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 189

accompanied the bill with a speech laying particular stress on liberty of conscience, which was
repeatedly interrupted by applause from the present-day Right.

What conscience-burdening harassments the execution of the above cabinet order brings upon
earnest clergy is shown by the proceeding of the Supreme Consistory against the consistorial
councilor and general superintendent Dr. Büchsel, who on Sunday, February 20,
was suspended from his pastoral functions and represented by another preacher,
because he would not publish the banns for a husband divorced without biblical grounds. The
pastor representing him then did publish the banns for the couple in question. That is a
fine little sample of the horrors of Caesaropapism.

Constitutional Birth-Pangs in Denmark. Since 1848 the Lutheran Church
in Denmark has to that extent ceased to be a state church, in that by law religion
and worship have been made free, without civil disadvantage. The bond between
state and church has thereby been loosened, and since the king no longer holds church authority
in the former manner, the church must now consider how in future it shall
order its governance, so as to protect its independence against unchurchly encroachments.
All sorts of proposals are surfacing. Some want to introduce an episcopal polity. With
this, however, very many are dissatisfied. The bishops have never been more than our general
superintendents and have never wielded the church authority that lay fairly unrestricted with
the king. In the introduction of an episcopal polity people see high-churchism
and hierarchy, and therefore oppose it. Another proposal goes toward
handing church governance to a synod, composed of clergy and laity by
means of universal suffrage — precisely the opposite
of the first proposal. In this way the great mass would obtain governance,
which naturally meets with hard opposition not only from the bishops and provosts, but
also from the state government. Given the sharp divergence of the parties,
mediation is hard to find. Hence a third proposal goes toward letting
the matter rest as it is: "At present," it is said, "the confusion is too great for
a polity to be established in a wholesome way. It would only collapse again.
Better to be content with provisional measures and to wait out the course of time."
That seems to be the prevailing view, and the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs
accordingly continues to direct the Lutheran Church, by consulting, in important
matters, the counsel of the cabinet and of the Diet.

Our church constitution can easily be broken up, but one does not so readily get a
new one, however many proposals one may have. A distracted time, at odds with the
church, is least suited to build anything. Hold fast what you have,
until the time comes when God builds something! What he (?) has given us in the
course of history, that we should tend gratefully, but not tear down the house before we
can rebuild a new one.

Württemberg and Saxony are now also at work on it. Saxony needs above all
to have the building-stones cleared of rubble. Here the state has made a constitution,
that is, destroyed one. God grant that the new work be more blessed! In Württemberg
people seem to be suffering somewhat from constitution-fever, and want to be independent before
they can stand on their own feet. (N. Zeitblatt.)

Baumgarten and the Göttingen Faculty. — In the Baumgarten
affair the Göttingen faculty has now also delivered its opinion. It judges
that Dr. Baumgarten is not caught up in a fundamental doctrinal deviation from the evangelical
confession, but on the contrary is rooted and lives in the basic views and truths
of the evangelical-Lutheran Reformation. The dismissal was, however, according
to the faculty's own judgment, not justified even granting the alleged fundamental
innovations, because the necessary theological negotiation with
Baumgarten himself had been lacking. —

Baumgarten and the Mecklenburg Estates. — On December 15
of last year the Mecklenburg Estates debated the matter of Professor
Baumgarten. The result is: "The Estates hold that their rights have been violated by the
condemnation of his teaching pronounced in the Baumgarten dismissal decree without
prior proceedings in due ecclesiastical order, and move on their own initiative
that the institution of proper ecclesiastical proceedings be opened for him, by 72 votes
against 48."

The Luther Monument. — The Braunschweig Kirchenblatt says in its
review at the end of last year concerning the Luther monument: "So far as is
known to us, participation in our land has thus far been very slight. There
ought to have been more testimony borne against this matter in Lutheran circles than has
been the case, in order to warn many otherwise church-believing men against a fellowship
in which there is truly no salvation to be found for our church. Luther needs no
monument and is above such a thing; the origin of the matter is thoroughly apocryphal