Deny divinity of Scripture? = "No more in faith”; Walther & Scripture, Part 2 of 3; Engelder's blind spot on Elert

[2020-02-03: inserted text at bottom in "jump break" section of Engelder's essay]
      This continues from Part 1, a 3-part series on the importance of Holy Scripture in Walther's theology. — To reinforce Walther's acceptance of the label "Biblicism", we add the following striking assertion that will put all modern theologians on the defensive.  The importance of the Scripture Principle, or the "formal principle", or "das Schriftprinzip", was severely compromised by all modern theology, even in Walther's day.  But in the Synodical Conference Report of 1886 it was stated (p. 29-30, emphasis mine):

“Hence, we stand by our thesis, ‘the doctrine, that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are of divine origin in their contents and wording, is a doctrine the surrender of which dissolves the foundation of the Christian faith.’ Those who speak like Volck, Harnack, and others no longer stand in faith.”

Did you hear that?  Let me repeat it: Walther and the Synodical Conference declare that a compromise of the divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture “dissolves the foundation of the Christian faith”, that those who deny it

“no longer stand in faith”. 

This is a very serious warning indeed!  It flatly states that one cannot hold the so-called "material principle", i.e. "justification through faith" or the "vicarious satisfaction", without the Scripture Principle.  Long before Franz Pieper rose to the head of Concordia Seminary, C.F.W. Walther passionately taught this and defended it for dear life. 

      It is a pattern in Pieper's "Das Fundament" essay to point out that deniers of this doctrine are actually abandoning the foundations of Christianity, a very serious charge, and one that he (and Walther and Luther) meant.  These warnings are no child's play, they are no joke, nothing funny – they are matters of spiritual and eternal life and death – for you and me. —  In the next installment of Pieper's Das Fundament series, Part 20, this great warning is repeated. — In the concluding Part 3 of this series, examples are given of false charges made by LCMS teachers against Franz Pieper.

- - - - - - [Further information on Engelder's review of Werner Elert in the Read More section below] - - - - - -

Engelder praised Werner Elert,
only weak warning

      Theo. Engelder defended the Scripture Principle quite strongly with his final book The Scripture Cannot Be Broken.  He was subsequently disdained for this by teachers in the LC-MS.  However, in a 1937 review of an essay by the German theologian Werner Elert (CTM 8, October, p. 738-740, PDF, “Schrift und Bekenntnis”), Engelder praised Elert's "confessional" theology while partially admitting Elert's confusing talk of "Scriptural authority". One would have a hard time finding Walther or Pieper offering any praise of theologians, German or American, who question the full divinity of Holy Scripture. As demonstrated above, they rather question that they even stand in the Christian faith.  Unfortunately Engelder's weak warnings against Elert may have been used by the changing LC-MS as a green light to then take their instruction from Germany, instead of from Walther and Pieper. (See Schroeder, here, p. 234)
      Lowell C. Green in his 1997 (Summer) essay for CHIQ "The Relationship of Werner Elert and America" p. 83, stated the following influence of Elert on the LC-MS:

"…some of the Americans who according to my knowledge studied at Erlangen [under Elert] in the 1930s include Helmut Lehmann and Martin Lehmann, Fred Schoenbohm, Dorris Flessner, Martin Dietrich, Theodore Bachmann, and Theodore Baudler; in the 1940s and 50s followed Norman Nagel, Robert Schultz, Edward Schroeder, Richard Baepler, Paul Schulze, Lloyd Svendsbye, Howard Wagner, Robert Foster, and I. Besides these, Germans who studied under Elert and later became prominent in America included Gottfried Krodel, Gerhard Krodel, and Hans Hillerbrand. Elert also exerted his influence on Americans who did not study directly under him, such as Reu, Samuel Salzmann, Berthold von Schenck, and Jaroslav Pelikan, to name only a few."

Today's LC-MS and American Lutheranism in general are much more a product of Werner Elert than Engelder, Walther, or Franz Pieper. [Full German text of Engelder's review from CTM p. 736-747 here; translation of only the review of Elert's essay p. 738-740 here.] [2020-02-03: inserted the text of the aforementioned translation below in the "jump break" section:]

OCR’d by BackToLuther 2019-03-03 from Concordia Theological Monthly Volume: 8 Number: 10 in 1937, p. 736-747 available here at CTS-FW Media. This article is a review by Prof. Theodore Engelder of several essays by German theologians.  The following is an English translation of only the portion that reviewed the essay of Werner Elert. Published here.  = = = = = = = = = = = = =

What is said in the treatise "Scripture and Confession" [by Werner Elert] about the authority of the confessions and the relationship between the authority of the confessions and the authority of Scripture should be noted here and there.
1. The Lutheran Church, however, commits its teachers to the Confessions. And she is obligated to do so by God. “The theologians, who signed the Smalcald Articles in 1537, also signed the proposition that they meant according to the articles of the (Augsburg) Confession and Apology and taught them in their churches (sentire et docere) '. Already during Luther's lifetime, in his presence and under his approval, leading theologians granted the Reformation confessions the validity of a doctrinal norm. …  This signifies a teaching obligation for the holders of the ministry.”  (p. 4, 14)
2. The authority of the Confessions, however, rests exclusively on the authority of Scripture. The Lutheran Church by no means coordinates the Confessions with Scripture (p. 4)."It can never make judgments on valid church doctrine that can not be justified by the Gospel."  [Gospel Reductionism??] “The doctrinal decision of the church does not take place under its own authority, but only under the authority of Scripture.”  “The final decision on faith and confession is not in the dogmas, but in the Holy Scriptures.”  “The confessional authority is always in the service of the authority of the Scriptures, and it only reaches as far as it is covered by them.”  (p. 12, 16, 19, 22)
Here follows 3., that "a doctrine that is not a commitment to the Gospel, can never be church doctrine"  (p 21).  That is, no church has the right to pledge its doctrine if  [Page 739] this doctrine is not the repetition and reproduction of the scriptural statements concerned, not a commitment to Scripture. No church has the right to commit to a false doctrine, if this doctrine were also laid down and sanctioned in a thousand confessions. It makes no sense in this respect if one speaks of praise today in Germany of “Confessional Churches”. The Reformed Confessions, in so far as they present the Reformed heresies, are not right before God.
4. "The commonality in the recognition of Scriptural authority by no means guarantees the unity of the Church." (p 17) All Protestant church fellowships are committed to the sola Scriptura , while they spread, with one exception, unbiblical teachings, refusing to sign one confession. The unionist talk that “We do not need confessional writings, we all confess to Holy Scripture”  is the cover – an overly transparent cover – for the greatest possible disagreement.  One more thing: it is from this very fact that the need for confessional documents arises. They ask the false teacher the question of conscience: You call on the Scripture; do you actually accept what Scripture really teaches?  The Church is obliged to ask this question through its Confessions. God requires the Church to allow only those teachers who profess openly the Scripture denied by the false teachers, 1 John 4:1; 1 Pet. 3:16; Matt. 10:32.
5. Precisely for this reason "the current doctrine of the church requires a wording which has been laid down in formulation”  (p. 12. Emphasis in original). That is to say, that the church is not served with unionistic, ambiguous, elastic formulas. And further: The wording formulated several centuries ago  is still valid today! The modernist must accept the Apostles' Creed in its wording – or honestly reject it. And the Lutheran must not say that, for example, what is literally formulated in the Smalcald Articles, must be understood historically, and is not exactly so according to the wording today.
6. "What is spoken of officially in the Church can and must be borne by the whole Church.”  (p. 7) One must not say: This publication is a private publication; this seminary belongs to a private fellowship; this false teacher can only be held accountable by his district, not by the general body.
7. Elert also discusses the nonsensical “proposition that the formulated dogmas divide Christendom, while the Scriptures unite them,” as well as “the opinion of Søderblom that faith divides men, but love binds them together”  (p. 18). “The Augsburg Confession was not the cause of the schism in the Reformation century.”  Too bad that we can not quote the whole passage here. — The  [page 740] statement on page 9 “One can make the difference between church and sect clear here: in a sect all speak the same thing”  could easily be misunderstood.