# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1859_S285
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches [Church and Contemporary History]. 285

...an unambiguous scriptural passage on which to base it. Where, then, is there such a passage for chiliasm? Rev. 20:4, perhaps? Has anyone yet found the sure key to the Revelation of John? All respect to the labors of more recent expositors of Scripture! But no one talks us into believing that the enigmatic prophecies can already be interpreted with the certainty of faith, either as a whole or in their particulars. They are conjectures, probabilities — that is as far as anyone has gotten with them, nothing more. That Revelation 20 teaches a thousand-year kingdom and a first resurrection, no one can deny. But what is to be understood by it, no one knows to this day, even though he may have let his imagination run wild through the whole of Revelation. And yet a doctrine of progress, a church doctrine, is supposed to be drawn from this? Is that even possible without the certainty of faith, or is one going to be so confident as to draw such a doctrine, with the certainty of faith, out of an obscure passage? The church will never resolve to found even a single one of its doctrines on such sand.

It is very much to be regretted that in these innovations lies the chief obstacle keeping the Iowans from joining, or wishing to join, the rest of the Lutherans. It is to be feared that sooner or later this relationship will become decidedly hostile. In their intention of making progress in doctrine, they will hinder the progress of the Lutheran church in America, and the blessing which the Iowans brought with them from Neuendettelsau will be considerably impaired by the far greater curse of ecclesiastical division and self-willed innovation — if indeed the synod is not drawn by its own progress onto dangerous paths. It is the peculiar and fateful character of American development that it rapidly ripens the false seeds brought over with it and brings them to dangerous dominance. Nowhere is caution more necessary than there.

Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches [Church and Contemporary History].

Amerika [America].

In the Lutheran Observer of July 8th, a correspondent defends the public leading of prayer, even by women, in worship assemblies. He makes the point that otherwise "their sweet angel voices" would not be permitted to be heard in our public assemblies either. — In the same paper, of July 15th, a correspondent writes: "The convention [of the General Synod] at Pittsburgh has strengthened the bond of our Union and shown that no question touching doctrine, discipline, or procedure can ever tear us apart. We are one and inseparable. Our Union is based on mutual concession. We have learned a lesson which our fathers could not learn: to give and to take." Excellent! To be sure, the honest fathers did not yet understand how to barter away God's Word and truth for the sake of earthly peace; rather, they regarded it as a matter for the Antichrist to grant one another mutual dispensation from God's commandments. Further down the same correspondent writes: "Mr. Ludwig conscientiously subscribes the unaltered Augsburg Confession, and denies to everyone the right to call himself a Lutheran who does not do the same. Has