I have received a comment from Pastor Joel Baseley of
Mark V Publications. He wanted to correct an error I made on
my recent posting about his translation work of
Der Lutheraner. You may read his comment in its entirety on
that blog post. I started a short reply to him but it grew too large for just the comments section and so I am devoting an entire blog post to it:
Pastor Baseley:
You are quite correct in admonishing my error of identifying
Walther as the subject of Prof. John T. Pless' praise on your Customer Quotes section of your website. I will change the name from Walther to
Luther and make a note of the error.
But if you should afterward continue to question my
admonishment against Prof. Pless because you are "not personally
acquainted with Pless' regard or lack thereof for Walther", then you
should read more of my blog that clearly shows this "lack thereof". Prof.
Pless' praise of Wm. Loehe is misplaced... you should especially know this
as a translator and authority on Walther.
Loehe's errors are not unknown – on the Sacraments and Ministry (Pieper,
Christian Dogmatics III, pg 407, 445-449) Or do you think it is possible to properly praise Luther (his
clarity?) while at the same time holding to Loehe's errors, Loehe as a corrective to Walther? (Pless is your head of the "Commission on Doctrinal Review" in the LC-MS according to page xiv of the 2013 Convention Workbook.)
You know that in the very first issue of volume 4 (1847) of Der Lutheraner, Walther placed emphasis on his polemics – his defense of doctrine
against error. But although you correct
my error, your polemics (from within today's LC-MS) for the truth are
limited. Yes, you defend the sacrament
of Holy Communion and perhaps some other practices. But you seem to stop there.
Do you agree that it was necessary for Walther to publicly defend
against the manifold errors in America and Germany? Do you agree that Walther had to defend against Loehe's errors on
the Ministry ("Kirche
und Amt - Neue Aphorismen") and against his error on the
Sacraments?
I will tell you a story Pastor Baseley. When I was coming back to my Christian
faith, I started reading the 12 volumes of
R.C.H.
Lenski's Commentary on the New Testatment, you know, Prof. Lenski of
the Ohio
Synod... and I couldn't get enough of him!
I devoured his many volumes. But
when I read his warnings against the old (German) Missouri Synod's teaching of Universal,
Objective Justification, I threw all of his volumes into the
trash! Imagine that! 12 volumes of a Lutheran teacher... in the
trash! That was a lot of money that I threw
away. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Galatians 5:9
Your translation work of Luther and Walther astounds me and I recommend that all my readers make use of your resources on them... as I do of those published by CPH (with some warnings) and others (e.g. Australia). But it takes more than translation to understand them. I suggest that you read about the heart of Walther – his
Doctrine of Justification. You will
easily find it on my blog. Then as you
continue your translation work of Walther, you will have a better
understanding of Walther, The
American Luther. May you continue
to sit at the feet of Luther and Walther. I will be sitting there also (Here
I Sit!) but included among my teachers will be The
Twentieth Century Luther, The Second
Walther – Franz Pieper.
Signed,
BackToLuther
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