Grantville Gazette Part 30

"I've also brought copies of Synodical President Walther's manual about how to set up an independent synod. The t.i.tle is, The Proper Form of an Evangelical Lutheran Congregation Independent of the State. There are copies of that over by the door, too. I'm not a theology professor. I'm not even a pastor. My college major was in business administration and I'm the business manager for the hospital in Grantville. I'm not saying this to you from me, the person, because I have any authority. I'm saying it to you because Lutherans had tried out a lot of ways of governing their churches between the seventeenth century and the twentieth century. This-which was worked out by your descendants, who were also my ancestors-was the only one that let them hold to pure doctrine. When the Ring of Fire happened, I lost my wife and my parents. I lost all my friends and my job. But I didn't lose my faith. So I'm not going to give you any more of my words. This is how Synodical President Walther ended his speech."

Gary lifted his head.

"'Even though we possess no power, but that of the Word, we nevertheless can and should carry on our work joyfully. Let us, therefore, esteemed sirs and brethren, use this power properly. Let us above all and in all matters be concerned about this, that the pure doctrine of our dear Evangelical Lutheran Church may become known more and more completely among us, that it may be in vogue in all of our congregations, and that it may be preserved from all adulteration and held fast as the most precious treasure. Let us not surrender one iota of the demands of the Word. Let us bring about its complete rule in our congregations and set aside nothing of it, even though for this reason things may happen to us, as G.o.d wills. Here let us be inflexible, here let us be adamant. If we do this, we need not worry about the success of our labor. Even though it should seem to be in vain, it cannot then be in vain, for the Word does not return void but prospers in the thing whereto the Lord sent it. By the Word alone, without any other power, the church was founded; by the Word alone all the great deeds recorded in church history were accomplished; by the Word alone the church will most a.s.suredly stand also in these last days of sore distress, to the end of days. Even the gates of h.e.l.l will not prevail against it. "For all flesh is as gra.s.s, and all the glory of man as the flower of gra.s.s. The gra.s.s withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.'

"Amen," Gary said.

Gary Lambert had just achieved something that no one else in human memory had achieved. Professor Lukas Osiander, Jr. was temporarily speechless.

He recovered quickly, but he realized that he was also going to have to rewrite his carefully prepared summary statement. It seemed a little... irrelevant.

He called for an overnight break. Count Ludwig Guenther gave him two hours.

It was possible, of course, that if Count Ludwig Guenther had granted the full overnight break that Osiander requested, the world would have turned on a different axis. But there was no way to peer into time and find out the what ifs and the might have beens of history. The count, like many others, was getting very tired of those hard benches. His secretary was writing up a draft of the decision he had already taken after his supper with the "personal representatives" at Margrave George's rooms, even as the summary statements were being publicly presented. He was fifty-two years old and he was feeling every one of them. He wanted to go back to his own quarters and sit on a comfortable chair. He definitely did not want to stretch this meeting out for another day, especially since the provisions for the scheduled closing banquet were being delivered to all the contributing-and unrefrigerated-kitchens of Jena at this very moment.

Professor Osiander spent very little of the two hour break looking at the Walther material. His colleagues and a.s.sociates were alternately reading random sentences from it out loud and shouting at one another. There was no chance that they would reach agreement on a modified summary statement within the allotted time. Osiander suddenly thought that no secular ruler should have the right to prevent the church from making a full and conscientious examination of a crucial issue before it.

He ended up presenting his original summary. With one more sentence at the end.

"If the decision of the count should be to require an orthodox minister to extend communion to lay persons who claim to be members of his congregation, but who are not in full doctrinal agreement with the teachings of the Formula of Concord, then the defenders of Lutheran orthodoxy feel that they must take the step of consulting with their brethren of the Missouri Synod on possible changes in the const.i.tution and structure of the visible church."

Wednesday morning, the chancellor of Saxony and his entourage left Jena at first light, riding hard for Dresden. The Wittenberg theologians, however, stayed behind.

Cavriani, who just happened to be leaning against the city gate when it was opened, took down a list of those departing. He and his list made it back to the Black Bear in time to have breakfast with Ed Piazza. "The distinction between Saxony's politicians and theologians is, to say the least, an ambivalent signal," he mused out loud.

Tanya promptly roused up the people napping next to other radio sets and relayed a copy of the list to Magdeburg and Grantville.

In the matter of the ministerial appointment at St. Martin's in the Fields, near Grantville, United States.

In the matter of the a.s.sociated appointments of the teaching staff at Countess Katherina the Heroic Lutheran Elementary School, near Grantville, United States.

In the matter of the antic.i.p.ated ministerial appointment at St. Thomas the Apostle, near Grantville, United States.

In the matter of the a.s.sociated appointments of the teaching staff at the yet-unnamed Lutheran Elementary School to be constructed in connection with the church of St. Thomas the Apostle.

Count Ludwig Guenther rechecked the heading to make sure that his secretary had included everything. He didn't want to go through another one of these in the foreseeable future. Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt was a small county, only about 35,000 in total population. It had a limited budget. This colloquy had been a big financial drain, coming on top of the mandatory war contributions. He would, once it was over, have to call his Estates-the county's legislature-and request a special tax levy to cover the debts that he had incurred.

Count Ludwig Guenther had a well-known streak of financial prudence, two miles wide and two miles deep. He loathed asking for special tax levies. The Estates always wanted some kind of a quid pro quo. It was much better for a man to live within his means.

His announcement of the decision proceeded at a measured pace. In addition to the actual decision itself, which would come at the end, his presentation covered all the possible approaches, as his consistory saw them and upon which it had advised him, as well as the points debated in the colloquy.

There was the option of appointing an orthodox minister to both churches, allowing them to exclude those unwilling to subscribe, without reservation, to the Formula of Concord and unaltered Augsburg Confession, from communion;

There was the option of appointing an orthodox minister to both churches, but requiring them to admit such persons to communion;

There was the option of appointing an orthodox minister to one of the churches and a Philippist to the other;

There was the option of establis.h.i.+ng a parity arrangement, in which one group used the church facility for part of the time and the other group used the church the remainder of the time, each group having its own minister;

There was the option of appointing Philippist ministers to both of the churches-who would, it was a.s.sumed, be willing to admit Lutherans of all theological views to communion.

The count evaluated the advantages of each option-carefully. Ed Piazza was a little surprised by some of the a.n.a.lysis. n.o.body else who had spoken at the whole colloquy thus far had, for instance, addressed the question of just how far any given arrangement would require the Grantville paris.h.i.+oners to walk in order to attend church.

Clearly, the count said, the first option would be preferred by the theologians from Tuebingen and Wittenberg and, indeed, by those of Jena, as well as by the clerical members of the consistory of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. However, in his capacity as Landesvater, advised also by the lay members of his consistory, he found that his duty to ensure the provision of religious services to so many Lutheran immigrants, displaced from their former homes by this tragic war, was more important than the maintenance of the strictest orthodoxy. He did not feel that he could agree to an arrangement by which St. Martin's and St. Thomas would not be open to them.

Steadily, Count Ludwig Guenther moved through the points. He had, he said, concluded that on the basis of experience with applying parity between Catholics and Lutherans for using the churches in certain German Imperial cities, the arrangement was most inconvenient for all concerned and led to ongoing, persistent, disputes and ceaseless controversies. Such an arrangement would be very difficult to administer.

The whole parity idea was new to Ed. He'd never heard of any such thing. But once more he pulled to the front of his mind the general maxim that in the 1,000-plus little political ent.i.ties that made up the Holy Roman Empire, any imaginable arrangement probably existed somewhere.

Yeah, Ed thought, contemplating Tino n.o.bili's probable reaction to any such proposal if it were inst.i.tuted at St. Mary's. I can see how it might cause ceaseless controversies.

Tino was one of the crosses he had to bear. If Opus Dei had ever invited Tino to join, he would have been honored to accept. Tino's kids had already finished CCD cla.s.ses by the time Ed took over as chairman of the parish education committee; his grandchildren hadn't been old enough yet. Ed breathed a short prayer of thanks for G.o.d's infinite mercies and brought his attention back to the count.

Who, clearly, had moved on quite a s.p.a.ce while Ed's mind was wandering.

"Thus, in the matter of the faculty appointments at both of the Grantville schools that our consistory is currently subsidizing, given that the teaching of religion to children prior to the age of confirmation rarely demands more than a good knowledge of the Shorter Catechism, we will not require more than a willingness to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, with no specification as to altered or unaltered."

Ed looked around the room and saw young Muselius smiling brilliantly. And, why not? He had just been told that he was going to keep his job. Carol Koch had formed her thumb and forefinger into a circle. Gary Lambert's face was completely impa.s.sive.

"In regard to the ministerial appointments..." The count paused.

"While we do not believe that it would be feasible to inst.i.tute simultaneous parity, we have decided that the ministers appointed to each parish shall be, alternately, of the Flacian and Philippist persuasions. There is sufficient legal precedent for this in the arrangements for some of the North German dioceses, whereby the administrator is alternately Catholic and Lutheran. No candidate for the ministry will be required to accept an appointment to these parishes. Therefore, any man of the orthodox persuasion who has qualms of conscience about extending communion to all of his paris.h.i.+oners may simply refuse the post. This, we believe, should be an adequate reservation in cases of conscience."

When Ed looked at the Tuebingen theologians, the expressions on their faces gave him the distinct impression that they did not regard it as an adequate reservation in cases of conscience.

But the count was not finished. Switching from the formal "we," he continued: "I specifically wish to avoid the problem that the northern dioceses have encountered, of both Catholic and Lutheran rulers appointing young, untried, untested, and insufficiently mature men to the dioceses in hopes that they will be long-lived and extend either Protestant or Catholic control for as long as possible. Such pursuit of purely political advantage is unconscionable among those who claim to hold a divinely entrusted responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their subjects."

He looked rather firmly at the "personal observer" from the Duchy of Brunswick, who had almost single-handedly caused the Monday evening meeting at Margrave George's quarters to run so late by insistently demanding that Ludwig Guenther remove this comment.

"We have decided to apply, in these cases, a concept that is not entirely strange to our own law, and which was well established in the law of the ancient Romans, but is in practice much more frequently applied by our American friends." He bowed toward Ed-the first official recognition of his presence inside the lecture hall since the first day, when all the "personal observers" had been introduced. "The appointments to these parishes shall be five-year terms, alternating. If one inc.u.mbent dies during his term of office, another candidate of the same opinion shall be nominated by the consistory to complete the term."

"This decision shall stand." The count publicly signed and sealed about two dozen copies of it that were neatly stacked on the table next to him.

"The County of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt extends its most sincere thanks to all who have contributed to its deliberations on this important matter. The colloquy is adjourned."

To the work! To the work! There is labor for all...

None of the university students, whether Jena's own or the visitors, would be attending the state dinner, of course. Now that the formal closing ceremonies were over, they were milling around, somewhat at loose ends-and, in the case of those from Tuebingen and Wittenberg, bitterly disappointed with Count Ludwig Guenther's decision. Most of them decided to have another beer, since the booths that sold beer weren't even starting their close-out.

None of the ordinary visitors who had come to Jena to have a look at colloquy would be going to the state dinner, either, but those who hadn't already started for home were still wandering around, hoping to pick up bargains from some vendor who would rather not carry his stuff home. The marketplace was also full of apprentices and day-laborers who were packing up unsold merchandise, dismantling booths, and loading carts and wagons, trying to get things out of the way before the late-afternoon formal procession from the medical school to the city hall, which was where the banquet would be held.

Aside from them, as the booths were removed, the center of the square, beyond the cordoned-off route, was gradually filling up again, mostly with people from Jena itself who wanted to see the parade. Along the sides of the square, there was an unscheduled procession of maidservants and errand boys, delivering to the city hall, which had no kitchen of its own, all the dishes that the housewives of Jena had devoted their day to preparing from the provisions brought in by Count Ludwig Guenther. After they handed the roasts and pies in, at least half of them, whether with or without permission from their employers, were not returning home, but augmenting the group of spectators.

The procession was forming up, Count Ludwig Guenther's steward ensuring that all diplomatic representatives and their guests were in their proper places-that always minimized protocol disputes. It should be coming into the marketplace in just a few minutes.

Since Benny Pierce didn't have a booth, but just an upside down keg and an old backpack, he kept on performing. The sheet music sales of "The Romish Lady" had been really good. He wanted to pick up any last-minute loose change that might be flying around.

After the wild success of the week before, he'd decided to add more old-time Gospel to his Mother Maybelle mix. In spite of the fact that any thinking seventeenth-century theologian would ask a lot of questions in regard to doctrinal issues pertaining to "certainty of salvation," he'd gotten away with: