# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S382
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

382 Ecclesiastical Contemporary Affairs.

"is nothing less than a matter of indifference to the Evangelical clergyman," and that he
"often finds himself in the position of needing to be skilled in the liturgy of singing and to be
able to strike up a sacred hymn, or at least to exercise influence on the musical part of the
service, such as organ-playing, etc." The groundwork for this training is also to be laid
already in the Gymnasien. Luther says: A pastor who cannot sing —
Him I will not even look at.

Posen, September 19. A remarkable ukase recently issued by the Russian government
is examined more closely today by the "Czas" in a leading article. The article reads, in its
essential content, as follows: "We had already received earlier the report that a ukase had
been issued to the Catholic clergy in the Russian Empire, according to which every Catholic
priest is strictly obligated under no circumstances to admit anyone to confession of whom he
does not have complete assurance that the person rightfully, and by descent, belongs to the
Catholic religious community." One wonders whether the Lutherans are placed under a
similar rule?

In Austria, autonomy has at last actually been granted to the Lutherans as well as the
Reformed by an imperial patent of September 1; the congregations have been given the right
of election, and supreme authority has been placed in the hands of a General Synod to be
held every six years.

Oldenburg, August 30. In the publication patent of the local church constitution
revised some years ago, it was expressly stated that the provisions concerning the filling of
vacant pastoral positions should apply only provisionally, and that the definitive decision
on this point should remain reserved until the next regular provincial synod had also been
heard on the matter. On this occasion the synod now in session had to state its position on
the question whether the present provisions of the constitutional law — by which the right of
election, from among three candidates proposed to it by the Supreme Consistory, belongs to
the general congregational assembly in the filling of vacant pastoral positions — should be
retained or altered, and how. After many negotiations and lively debates, the synod has now,
as the "Westf. Ztg." reports, reached its decision, and by 19 votes to 12 has decided in favor
of retaining those provisions. Among those 19 votes were 6 clergy, among the 12 votes
8 clergy, so that the majority of the clergy present at the synod actually spoke out against
the existing method of election. The dissatisfaction of the great majority of the clergy of the
duchy with this method of election has also come to light in three addresses, signed by 55
clergy and 3 assistant clergy, submitted to the present synod.

The Concept of the Church. At a pastoral conference held on August 24 in
Dresden, at which more than 60 pastors were present, the Lutheran and Roman concepts of
the church were, among other things, discussed. Dr. Kahnis remarked: We hold the church to
be essentially something invisible, without thereby denying that this invisibility is not without
an outward form; but this is the second thing, and that the first. The two relate to each other
as essence and appearance. The Romanists, on the other hand, took the church to be
essentially something visible, the invisible being to them the secondary thing; membership in
it required, they held, not something inward, such as faith, but something outward — mere
belonging to the visible church. Consistorial Councillor Dr. Langbein agreed with this,
adding further that

"the invisible church does not exist at all without the visible. But while the Romanists
maintain that only he who belongs to the visible church is saved, we hold fast to this: that
whoever stands outside the church of the third article is not saved." Pastor Lehmann of
Chemnitz recognizes as belonging to the church whoever believes in Jesus from the heart, but
would like to know whether a person who says that there is only one church, and that this one
church is the Lutheran — or, in other words, that the Lutheran church is the true church — is
thereby "Catholicizing," for it stands firm that, in the biblical sense, one cannot speak of a
twofold or threefold church; that is merely a historical designation. Prof. Dr. Kahnis called
Lehmann's question the rather glaring question of the day, whose