# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1934 masthead not in scan _S235
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

235

Methodists 8,766,017 members. The number of preachers amounts to 239,518 and that of congregations to 242,011. There are therefore 2,493 more congregations than preachers. The rumor that in our country there are ten thousand more pastors than churches is therefore false. To be sure, many of the congregations listed are very small, so that they cannot support a pastor. Interest in the church among our population is rather increasing than decreasing. Let us take note of that.
J. T. M.

Abroad.

"In Firm Faith in His Redeemer." Under this heading we read in the "Freikirche," the church periodical of our brethren in Germany, the following: "We found these words in a well-known Berlin daily newspaper, in the notice by which the son of the recently deceased former Minister of War, Colonel General Karl von Einem, announces the death of his father. 'After long suffering, borne with the greatest patience,' this commander, known from the World War, passed away on April 7, and indeed in firm faith in his Redeemer. 'He who dies thus, dies well,' whatever he may have been here on earth. May God grant all of us, when our little hour also comes, such a blessed end, and take us graciously to himself in heaven!"

It is indeed a fine confession that the son of the famous General von Einem here makes before the world. His father, a highly respected man, dies in firm faith in his Redeemer. The eminent man is not ashamed of this, nor is his son ashamed of it. To friends and enemies of Christianity he calls out fearlessly: "My father died in firm faith in his Savior." Truly, God has his dear children everywhere, who live and die in faith. Though the devil rages and the world mocks, he graciously leads his elect into his kingdom of heaven. Let us Christians take comfort in this, especially now, when so much unbelief and apostasy prevail, and all the more courageously confess our faith before all the world.
J. T. M.

Protests Against the Reorganization of the German Church. In Germany protests from the Lutheran side are still coming in against the planned reorganization of the German church. In a letter from the theological faculty at Erlangen we read: "The merging of Lutheran churches into the German Evangelical Church contradicts the idea of the church held by the Lutheran confession, as long as the Lutheran character of the German Evangelical Church is not secured. According to this confession there is no church unity without unity of church doctrine." In the protest letter of the theological faculty at Leipzig we read: "We point out with earnestness that, also according to the Lutheran conception, the outward order of the church may not deny the spirit of the Bible and of the Confessions." These are statements over which one may rejoice, even if the right clarity and firmness are not expressed in them. The solution of the question remains, after all, the founding of Free Churches in which all come together who take their stand on the ground of Scripture and the Confession. That, to be sure, people over there are not accustomed to. The old order is so ingrained that people are unwilling to let go of it. But even if the request of the outspoken Lutherans were to be granted, what would then not all come together in the Reich Church? Can there be anything like unity of faith there? These are serious times that the Lutheran church people in Germany are now living through, and they remind us in a very special way of our duty toward our brethren over there in the Free Church.
J. T. M.

Bishops. Since the time of the war and especially since the upheaval of last year, the office of bishop has again been established in the German regional churches. There would be nothing to object to in this if the office of bishop were regarded as the New Testament, which itself uses the term bishop, teaches, namely that the bishop stands on the same level as every preacher and has no special authority and plenary power. But there is great danger, as the history of the Christian church, especially the history of the Roman episcopal office, which finally led to the papacy, shows, that a special power and authority is assigned to the bishops, which is then also claimed and exercised. The "Ev.-Luth. Freikirche" therefore rightly calls attention to the fact that precisely in this time one should read and take to heart a writing of Luther's, which he wrote in the year 1542 under the title "Exempel, einen rechten christlichen Bischof zu weihen," when he himself had consecrated Nikolaus von Amsdorf as evangelical bishop of Naumburg. That this danger is not being avoided, that on the contrary some of the new German bishops want to rule over the people and over the pastors, has been shown more than once. Our good Lutheran Confession says in the Smalcald Articles: "Therefore the church can never be better [baß] governed and maintained than by all of us living under one Head, Christ, and the bishops all, equal according to their office (though unequal according to their gifts), diligently holding together in harmonious doctrine, faith, sacraments, prayers, and works of love." (Triglotta, p. 472.) It does not matter whether one has bishops. The main thing is pastors who are faithful to the Confession, conscientious, and devout, such as the epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus describe them.
L. F.

A Catholic Bible Movement. The "Rhein-Mainische Volkszeitung" of last November reported on a new Catholic Bible movement, as a notice in an exchange paper reports. We read there: "The 'Rhein-Mainische Volkszeitung' reports on it: 'Whoever looks more closely at Catholic life cannot fail to see that in the last generation a turning to the Bible has taken place, which may very well be called a "movement." But how was this ground prepared? How was this atmosphere created? The strongest effect undoubtedly came from the pronouncements of the supreme pastoral office of the Church, especially from the directives of the last popes. These wishes of the church's chief shepherds, however, are met by the desire of the people, as Pastor Dr. Könn aptly observes. The people, he says, want to get to know the Scripture, want to go back to the original sources of revelation. In particular the admonitions of the popes and the bishops find a joyful reception among Catholic youth. There is thus a Catholic Bible movement, and so it was natural to put into effect an organizational consolidation of all forces and means, to create institutions such as Protestant Germany has long possessed in the Württemberg Bible Institute. This wish has now been fulfilled by the founding of the association "Catholic Bible Movement in Stuttgart."'"

We could rejoice if now the people in the Roman church too were to be permitted to really read the Bible. But the pope does not allow that. The Council of Trent, with its resolutions hostile to the Gospel, stands there once and for all as the eternally abiding rejection of the Gospel of Christ. The papacy cannot tolerate that the Bible be read and so accepted and believed as the words read. If it does that, it must collapse, because the papacy and the Gospel remain forever opposites. If the pope demands the Roman