# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1010
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10

Pastoral Letter and the so-called Rottirer did not agree, had left this to them as free, when he and another part of his congregation, with which he had settled in the country 40—50 miles farther east in Kirchhain, 6 miles from Krause's parish, called Freistatt, demanded from them a new call on the basis of the Pastoral Letter, and the Watertowners answered that they would abide by the old one. Thereupon he refused them, to be sure, any further administration of the Holy Supper.—Shortly before, Grabau had written a supposed refutation of the Missourian critique, signed also by Kindermann and Krause; to which counter-critique the Saxon pastors in turn replied at length, on the 15th of January, 1845. Through Past. Geyer this reply became known in Wisconsin, and strengthened the opponents of the ruling church party in their in itself unobjectionable opposition.*

*We would not here omit to call attention to a considerable misunderstanding of Mr. Grabau. The Saxon pastors had, in their reply to his counter-critique, quite correctly cited a passage from Chemnitii locc. theol. III. de eccl. p. 137 ed. Wittenberg.: Fatendum sane, nullum exstare in Scripturis mandatum Dei, quod hic ritus ordinationis sit adhibendus etc. Grabau, however, in his 2nd Synodal Letter of the year 1850 (p. 109 at the bottom made them the reproach that their citation was false and that one must read ordinationi instead of ordinationis. Whoever understands Latin and possesses Chemnitii locc. theol., let him read the whole passage according to the Frankfort edition p. 126, b), and he will find, repeatedly and again and again, especially before it, ritus ordinationis, as indeed every informed person readily comprehends that Chemnitz cannot possibly have written ordinationi. (The alteration habendus for adhibendus does not matter much here.)

In the summer following, the Synod of Buffalo held its first session at Freistatt and Milwaukie. Although the pastors of it in Wisconsin had promised their congregations to invite the Saxon brethren in office to it: yet it did not happen, and afterward the sending of Geyer to Wisconsin was given as the reason, for which cause also the last letter of the Missourians was not answered. The relation with them now turned into a strained, indeed hostile one, as is already to be seen from the first Synodal Letter of the Buffalo Synod. All attempts at a peaceful settlement were rejected by the latter harshly and obstinately, whereby the unshakable refusal of a discussion concerning the differences of doctrine, which to enter upon could not at all be contrary to their own principles, made many of their own congregation members ever more suspicious.†

†When the Silesian Bierosch appeared at the Synod at Freistatt, in order to have it investigate the cause of his countrymen unjustly banned by Grabau in Hamburg: the latter knew how to give it precisely the opposite turn, and to draw the honest man into a dispute over doctrine, for which he was not equal and in which, as the mark of the true Church according to its appearance, he maintained the saying: Let him depart from iniquity, who nameth the name of Christ; whereupon, however, Kindermann himself, when Grabau seemed not at all to understand Bierosch, spoke to the former the remarkable words: Dear brother, Bierosch means that you should depart from the iniquity which you have committed against the Silesians.

Greatly did the dreadful abuse of the ban, which was in vogue in these congregations, contribute to such suspicion. To cite only one example, at the end of the year 1844 a certain Johann Sülflow and Joachim Götsch, both still residing in Wisconsin, had been excommunicated because, having come shortly before from Germany, they had expressed their astonishment at the coarse abusive words, the unbridled satirical invectives, the naming of names and the unholy calling of heretics, which they heard from the pulpits and to which they were wholly unaccustomed from their Lutheran pastors in Prussia.

The state of affairs drew ever nearer to a decisive crisis. Even if the holy doctrine of the Gospel, especially concerning the liberty of a Christian man, was not yet comprehended, grasped, and able to be defended with perfect clearness: yet it appears beyond doubt from the circumstances that in many, though darkly, it lay in their consciousness that with such a practice the faith could not possibly be pure and the dogmatic foundation the right and unfalsified one; the more this hovered before them, the more confidently did they attack the works as the fruits of the evil tree, only that indeed at times something Donatistic, or rather morbidly Pietistic, crept in. When the Lutheran preacher Ehrenström, who had arrived in the year 1844, an example of sad warning for all more gifted Christians, had fallen into dangerous errors of spiritual enthusiasm: Grabau wrote in the beginning of the year 1845 to his colleague in office Krause and informed him of the course of events. Martin Krüger, school superintendent at Freistatt, who, like most of his fellow emigrants, still thought much of Past. Ehrenström, could not at once give credence to Grabau's report, which Krause read in the church, and said so publicly before the church door. Later he continued the disputing about it in the house of the schoolteacher, and Pst. Krause, coming out of the church, heard it in passing, went in and asked about the subject of the conversation. When he was informed about it, he gave a very harsh rejoinder, and after some time Krüger received a slip from Krause, whereby he was summoned to present himself to the pastor and to get instruction. He did not comply with this invitation, nor with 2 other slips which were to be the steps of admonition, nor with a publicly repeated summons, but offered to go to Past. Krause to speak it out with him about it, which the latter would not accept;—and accordingly he was put under the ban with the untrue accusation that he had entangled himself in Ehrenström's errors and then gone over to Geyer, which latter, however, happened only after the above summons. (The documents concerning this, the correspondence between the Freistatters and Kirchhainers, are still extant.) This ban was announced, as always, to the sister congregations and so also to Kindermann, who, as was mentioned above, had settled with his people in Kirchhain, 6 miles from Freistatt, by a letter, and he and his congregation were to hold Krüger likewise to be under the ban. Now, however, a church officer of this congregation, Netzlaff, and the schoolteacher Stiemke had already before declared to their pastor that for conscience' sake they would sign no more ban-letters of Krause, unless they were convinced of the lawfulness of the same by reasons; and the pastor had rebuked, rightly, his brother in office in Freistatt, when the latter had, without further ado, turned away from the baptismal font and the Lord's Supper some who were dissatisfied with him in his Milwaukie filial congregation; and behold, now there arrives anew a bull of excommunication at the Kirchhainers. These, made mindful of what Luther says, that the congregation which is to hold anyone as banned should first know and be certain how he has deserved the ban and has come into it, and not believe men in God's matters, spoke themselves with Krüger, and learned that it was not so as it had been reported to them. They write thereupon, Kindermann and his people, to Krause and ask him for a closer explanation and a reliable proof. Pst. Krause answers most indignantly, and they complain in a letter to the Freistatt congregation, request it to make a conscientious examination of the matter, and warn against their preacher's hierarchical presumptions. Thereupon a congregational meeting is held at Freistatt, and in it several members, among whom was the schoolteacher Lemke, who had voluntarily left his office, and of whom the 2nd Synodal Letter of Grabau has quite falsely reported that he had been deposed, succeed in bringing it about that this dispute shall no longer be continued in writing but orally; the pastor and congregation at Kirchhain shall be notified and determine the place of the conference. Pastor Krause writes the letter, reads it aloud very quickly, and then calls upon everyone to sign it. Two do not sign, but also have not the heart to speak against it, and go away. Out of the friendly invitation to the Kirchhainers there becomes rather a citation, which naturally is not heeded in Kirchhain and concerning which the Kirchhainers request from the Freistatters an explanation. Pst. Krause is now approached by a part of his congregation to withdraw such citation, because it was not the mind and expression of the congregation. He not only did not do it, but began to revile from the pulpit the dissatisfied together with the Kirchhainers. No blessing could any longer be in such a church, for on all Sundays and weekdays the raging was continued. (In the churches of the Buffalo Synod this belongs to the prevailing manner of preaching.) The sorely aggrieved members of the congregation went to divine service at Kirchhain, and the pastor there gave them not only the counsel to turn to the Senior of the Ministerium, Grabau, but also the instruction how they should do this in writing. This dispute had dragged on until the beginning of the following year.