Some quotes from Chapter 10: (278-314)
279: "Chiliasm had raised its head in the Western District of the synod with Pastors A. Schieferdecker"
280: Grabau "managed to get a pact with Pastor Loehe. …From that time on, Pastor Loehe intended to found his own synod in North America… he had previously protested to the state church against the mixed communion practice and other evils…, he now submitted to the consistory."
281: Old Loehe: "The State fears the Church, it does not want to be influenced by the Church; what guarantees does the Church have that it will not be…enslaved by… the State, as has ever happened?"
282: Luther: "If they [bishops] also wanted to go by force and compel us to do so, we must die rather than allow such godlessness… Pastor Loehe was not willing to die for this truth"
282: Loehe's Iowa Synod: "the Lutheran symbols were not authoritative in all the points of doctrine."
284: Wyneken on Loehe's fall: " a Lutheran’s heart would turn around… sorrow for this dear man!"
286: Refuting Chiliasm/Millenialism: "it was explained to Pastor A. Schieferdecker… that the article according to which the Last Day could come at any moment, must not be violated."
288: Hochstetter: "It became clear to me… that the strength of the Missouri teachers did not rest both in their attachment to the symbols, but rather in their fear of God's Word!"
288: Walther at Iowa Colloquy: “A pastor’s stance must be that he says: … if I ever find that I consider a doctrine of the symbols to be wrong and cannot preach anymore, I promise to resign as an honest man.”
289: Walther: "… doctrine must be revealed in God's Word, for God's Word is above the Church."
290: Walther: "We believe that nothing can be an open question that God has already decided in his Word, whether or not it is in the symbols, whether in a conclusion or in a casual remark."
291: Walther to Iowa: "It seemed to us that you were paying homage to the newer theology…"
292: Walther: "Do not… accuse Scriptures of obscurity because great men have not understood them."
295: the Iowans "made use of a secret reservation."
296: "It is enthusiasm to teach that… there will still be two returns of Christ… The one is past,"
298: Walther: Do "not say that you want to give in to us to please us, but from your own conviction."
298: Iowans: "we cannot understand by the man of sin a papacy"
299: "This is Luther's verdict on the Pope, which we Missourians wholeheartedly endorse because, as we go through history, we see that every Word of Scripture about the Antichrist finds its full fulfillment in the Papacy."
301: Walther: "After the papacy has been developing for a thousand years, it is a truly satanic trick that now the doctrine has arisen in Christianity, that the Antichrist is not yet here. Now Christianity is waiting for an enemy who has long since devastated it.… Hellish powers really are truly at work"
307: "Luther's admonition: God fill you with hatred for the Pope!"
308: "Modern scholarliness of the newer theologians does not frighten the papacy.… Among all the well-known German theologians,… no longer a Protestant teacher…[with] faith in the Lutheran symbols!"
309: "From the time he drew back from the Missouri Synod, Pastor Loehe was in the habit of flirting with the papacy so often and praising the Roman founders of religious orders and saints so highly…"
309: Sihler's judgment on Iowa Synod: "This pseudo-Lutheran synod… is and remains a copy of Loehe's later erroneous views.… May they listen to the spirit of Paul, and not to the dead of Neuendettelsau,"
310: "In the opinion of the founder of the Iowa Synod, it should be a corrective to the Missouri Synod."
313: In the Iowa Synod: "the false idea, as if the Lutheran Church needed a doctrinal development, which had not yet come to an end with the Reformation."
313: "The Missouri Synod… the conscience of the Lutheran Church in… confessional loyalty."
Images of some men appearing in Chapter 10: (278-314)
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| Schieferdecker ——— Sievers ———— S. Fritschel ———— Walther ———— Huegli ———— Harless Grossmann ———— H. Fick ———— G. Fritschel ———— Sihler ———— Hochstetter |
The following is an English translation of C. Hochstetter's Geschichte… by BackToLuther utilizing the DeepL Translator with minor assistance from Dr. Fred Kramer's translation. All hyperlinks, highlighting and red text in square brackets [] are mine. All internal hyperlinks are active in this embedded window, external links should be opened in a new tab or window.
When reading the statements from the Iowa Synod during their first meeting with the (Old German) Missouri Synod, one learns essentially what the LCMS is today, just like the Iowa Synod. The many who hold up Loehe as their "father", like Prof. David Scaer, are only confirming this, that the LC-MS is not the true Missouri Synod, but rather its opponent. — I can only imagine how Dr. Fred Kramer, who during his career had sat through fruitless "Dialogues" with opponents of Lutheranism, even with Roman Catholics, must have felt joy when reading the simple truths as expressed by Walther in the Iowa Colloquy. I can imagine him thinking: "If only I had read Hochstetter's History before I began to doubt God's Word…" — I have frequently quoted Walther's comment regarding the Iowa Synod, that because they could not be convinced by God's Word, he had to break off further discussions with them. This chapter fills in the dramatic details of what led Walther to do this. Walther would never lightly break off a discussion with other Lutherans except for dire reasons… and this was a dire reason, to allow doubt about God's Word. — Walther's highly passionate plea with the Iowa Synod to not doubt the Scriptural and Confessional basis for the teaching of the Pope as the Antichrist left me shaking my head in sorrow over today's LC-MS which speaks essentially like the old Iowa Synod. Dear God! If the reader is not sure that the Pope in Rome is the Antichrist, read Walther… and be warned! The sympathy for the Pope today is just like the sympathy of the founders of the Iowa Synod and Wilhelm Loehe. I thought I had been strong enough on my blog in warning about this, but even I had to be amazed at Walther's passionate plea which is just like Luther. Walther stands next to Luther in this regard. — After the break below, the customary fine print version of the above chapter. In the next Part 15, Chapter 11.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Full text of Chapter 10 (fine print) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884, Chapter 10
By Christian Hochstetter
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Pastor Loehe's decline in the Confessions and the emergence of the opposing Iowa Synod. [Loehe starts deaconess institutes, teaches Chiliasm (283)] The colloquium of representatives of the Iowa Synod and the Missouri Synod (287). [Position on the Confessions (288); what is an “open question” (290); Iowans proven as double-minded, skepticism (293); Chiliasm of Iowa (295); the doctrine of the Antichrist (298); Walther’s great warning on Antichrist (300)] Pastor A. Schieferdecker's former resignation and eventual return to the Missouri Synod. [Schieferdecker resigns from Iowa Synod (310)]
As the struggle for the pure doctrines of the Church and the holy Ministry drew to a close, some might have expected that a time of peace would now come for the Missouri Synod. Since the Synod was in continuous growth, as early as 1852, at the sixth annual convention, a plan was presented for a division into district synods. Convinced of the already mature unity of spirit and the adequate distribution of gifts and energies in the various districts, it was hoped that this arrangement would have a beneficial influence on the various places and regions where the district synods would meet. After all the congregations had given their approval through their delegates at the seventh annual convention, the Missouri Synod was divided into four districts at the following eighth annual convention in 1854, and the time and
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place for them was arranged so that the general president could attend each district convention, since the presence of the general president of the Synod was considered necessary for each district assembly. Meanwhile, this synodical convention still had many struggles both internally and externally. When the synod opened the ninth general synodical convention in Fort Wayne on October 14, 1857, after ten years of existence, from which the pastors and delegates from all districts gathered, the general president, Pastor Wyneken, indicated to the Synod that the deliberation on the doctrine of the Last Things, especially on Chiliasm, would be the first subject of the consultation, because Chiliasm had raised its head in the Western District of the synod with Pastors A. Schieferdecker and C. F. Gruber and a part of their congregations. The unity of the Spirit had thereby been disturbed in the Synod, and it was now also necessary to bear witness against such errors, of which several brethren were imprisoned in the Synod.
Moreover, the restored good relationship between the Synod and Pastor Loehe had already been interrupted some years earlier. Although the delegates of the Missouri Synod, when they bid farewell to Pastor Loehe in Germany, hoped that the threatening break was avoided, the renewed relationship was nevertheless short-lived. It is already noted in the eighth chapter of this writing that Pastors Grabau and von Rohr also traveled to Germany as delegates of their synod in 1853 to win the judgment of the Lutherans there for themselves. Despite the fact that Pastor Grabau had also spoken harsh words against Pastor Loehe in the Buffalo Synodical Letters, the Buffalo delegates nevertheless visited Neuendettelsau with the intention of winning over the Bavarian Lutherans. The emissaries of Loehe had until then all joined the Missouri Synod, and Loehe’s Mitteilungen contained a protest against the fact that those on the side of the Buffalo synod wanted to see in men like Ad. Ernst, Friedrich Lochner, and others, as rabble preachers.
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Loehe had also stated that after reading through the travel report of the Missouri delegates, which was written by Prof. Walther, he did not find anything in the same healthy state that he should protest against. Nevertheless, Pastor Grabau managed to fill Pastor Loehe with mistrust against the Missouri Synod and to draw him more and more to the side of the Buffalo people. Pastor Grabau could personally, as long as he did not have an outburst, make a very winning impression, he knew how to control weak and wavering minds.
Since he was much more interested in a common alliance against the Missouri Synod than in an inner spiritual unity, he managed to get a pact with Pastor Loehe. On November 1, 1853, Pastors Grabau and von Rohr published in their Informatorium that as of September 18-21, 1853, they had agreed and reconciled with Pastor Loehe about all previous differences and misunderstandings, harsh words and mutual errors. It is also said there that they sought reconciliation with a penitent heart, but the repentance itself was said to consist in the fact that they (the Buffalo people) realized that they had shouted too loudly under the cruel treatment of their enemies. “If we have suffered injustice,” the statement concluded, “we should have suffered more patiently.”
From that time on, Pastor Loehe intended to found his own synod in North America, whose members were at first inclined to the Buffalo people, but in their doctrine were to seek a mediation between the two synods in dispute, namely between Missouri and Buffalo. The same ambiguous position, which finally led to unionism, Loehe took from now on also within the Bavarian state church. As he had previously protested to the state church against the mixed communion practice and other evils, as reported above (in chapter VIII), he now submitted to the consistory. That he nevertheless clearly recognized how much the Caesaropapism (prince papacy) [Fürstpapsterei] of these prince-bishops, who are partly (as is the case in Bavaria) Roman Catholic, is of evil,
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may the following words of Loehe testify: “We want to start off directly from the thing that causes so much hardship and trouble, which one cannot and does not know how to keep, — we mean the supreme episcopacy of the prince. He blackmailed tears enough as long as he was there, and one ought to let it depart without complaint. We don't want to talk about the supreme episcopacy of Roman Catholic princes over Protestant churches, this contradiction is self-evident. — But also the supreme episcopacy of princes of the same religion, what is he, as a spawn of the territorial system? Where has the church ever given the princes anything of the kind the jurists claim? What do the princes have of all this that they did not take, or that would not at least have attracted their temporal power, unconsciously but irresistibly? But if now the principle: cujus regio ejus religio (whoever has the country has to decide on the religion of the country) is gone, — if the states of religion say farewell, what do you want with a supreme episcopacy of princes? … The State fears the Church, it does not want to be influenced by the Church; what guarantees does the Church have that it will not be influenced, oppressed and enslaved by princes and the State, as has ever happened? So why not drop the supreme episcopate and all that is attached to it? With the center, the periphery also disappears. And what are consistories if there is no longer a bishop? Where there is no center, there are no radii. That no longer holds together… but one understands why some people want to cling to it so desperately — the Word is removed from their faith, that the Church rests on a Rock, and that the gates of hell should not overwhelm them, let alone the fall of the supreme episcopacy, with which nothing can fall that cannot be brought back a hundred times over.” [Wow! Give me the Old Loehe!]
Pastor Loehe agrees with Luther, who writes: “The bishop as prince is even less able to impose something on the Church; otherwise he will reach into other people's things, and if we let him have his way in this, we would be guilty of the same robbery of the Church.
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If they also wanted to go by force and compel us to do so, we must die rather than allow such godlessness, in order to maintain the difference between these two kinds of government”. [StL 16, 1015; cp. AE 49, 386-7]
Pastor Loehe was not willing to die for this truth, which he had recognized, but from now on he tried to take an outwardly peaceful position. He gave the same instruction from that time on to the emissaries he sent to North America. First of all, he founded a home for pilgrims which, according to the agreement made with the Missourian delegates, would also provide the material for a seminary for school teachers. G. Grossmann, the current president of the Iowa Synod, had therefore settled in Saginaw City in the state of Michigan. As a member of the Saginaw congregation he was then under the pastoral care of the Missourian pastor Sievers. Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction that Loehe was now expressing to the Missouri Synod was also shared with his youngest students. Suddenly, before Pastor Sievers and his members knew it, Grossmann had left Saginaw to found a new synod in Iowa. According to Pastor Loehe's report, two pastors, G. Grossmann and S. Fritschel, united in the city of Dubuque at this point, along with the missionary Schüller, who was joined in fourth place by Pastor J. Dörfler. It is claimed in this report that this Iowa Synod stands peacefully next to Missouri and Buffalo, nevertheless Loehe already questions the good relationship. He thinks Missouri represents the American Lutheran direction, but his Iowa Synod takes the German Lutheran position. If a reader wonders what this means, one learns that the Iowa Synod stands as Loehe stood at the Fuerth Conference (see in Section VIII) [p. 243-245] between Missouri and Buffalo; there in Fuerth one had argued that the Lutheran symbols were not authoritative in all the points of doctrine they contained, that one should read the symbols according to the Holy Scriptures, and that one should not regard them as the final point in everything. Accordingly, the Iowa Synod also believed that on the basis
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of the Lutheran symbols many things still had to be learned and perfected. (The Missouri Synod replied to the Fuerth Conference that honest Lutherans find the only correct understanding of the Holy Scriptures in the Lutheran confessional writings precisely because the symbols already go back to Scripture and contain the Scriptural confession of the true Church).
Pastor Loehe believed that if his friends were to leave the territory of Michigan and move to Iowa, this step would be justified for the sake of peace; unfamiliar with American conditions, he thought that in this way these Iowa congregations could be preserved from direct opposition to the Missouri churches. Nevertheless, the Iowa Synod has from the beginning formed itself as a synod of opposition to the Missouri Synod, and today the Iowa Synod, which has grown considerably through the influx from Germany, counts not only in the state of Iowa, but also in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and almost all of the Northwest, among its congregations, which in many places have built their altar opposite the Missouri Synod. Since the friendship maintained with the Buffalo Synod was only apparent, even though there was a mutual exchange of delegates in the beginning, there are also places where these Iowans, who came up later, have established themselves in opposition to both a Missouri and a Buffalo congregation. While the Iowa Synod is closer to the Buffalo people in its doctrine of the Ministry, later on it had to dissociate with Pastor Grabau, especially on account of the Chiliasm [Millennialism] to which it pays homage.
Pastor Loehe had not only lapsed into a busy work life, whereby he adopted the Roman deaconess institutes and hospitals as a model, but also wanted to see a church institute in a kind of extreme unction [or Roman Anointing of the Sick], which he performed on the sick; he also published a sermon on Phil. 3:10-11, in which he taught that the completion of the church was to be hoped for in a still to be expected millennial kingdom on earth.
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In an illness, he writes, the light had dawned on him; he too believed, as the enthusiastic party among the Pietists had taught long before, that by spreading the Chiliastic doctrines, new life would come into Christianity, for only when the Jewish people as a whole would be converted, Christ the Lord would visibly appear for the establishment of this millennial rule of the saints in this world, that the first resurrection of the especially active Christians, long before the last resurrection, will have happened when the supposedly until now still future Antichrist was overcome and Satan was so bound so that he could not tempt people any more, but then things would get better on earth. From this he was so enthusiastic about the Jews that he wished that he might belong to them according to the flesh (on the other hand, see Gal. 3:28). The sainted F. Wyneken rightly exclaims about this aberration that a Lutheran’s heart would turn around in his body out of sorrow for this dear man! The same Pastor Loehe, who had previously helped his disciples in their struggle against the syncretistic, monistic [i.e. unionistic] synods, now founded an opposition synod which was intended to serve as a counterweight to the Missouri Synod, but in fact had to deviate from the Lutheran Confessions to the same extent that it opposed that synod. Although the Missourians taught at all times that no un-Christian mob should pretend to be the Church, that only the true believers were in possession of the Word and Sacrament, that the Church, as the Smalcald Articles say, was the sheep of Christ hearing the voice of her Shepherd, and that the congregation of the believers is thereby far distinguished from the mass of unbelievers, that only through the confession of pure preaching and the properly administered sacrament does the true church make its appearance — so Pastor Loehe and the founders of the Iowa Synod nevertheless believed that from the beginning they had to take a direction opposite to that of the Missouri Synod. “One thing is certain,” it says already in the first report on the Iowa Synod, “that they
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want to oppose the American mob rule in the Church, which under the shield of the spiritual priesthood of all believers could consider itself sanctified, if possible also by means of church rules and statutes.” Even the congregation’s right of the call was restricted as much as possible by the Iowa Synod constitution. It was not considered that the evangelical freedom of Christians and of the congregations was thereby violated, and that it is impossible to enforce, by means of a constitution, the ministering love and the voluntary subordination to a fellow Christian, through which faith is active; such principles and statutes, however, were popular with the state-church members of the Bavarian Society for Inner Mission, and the latter strongly supported the young Iowa Synod with their money. In North America, however, one also wanted to keep up the Lutheran symbols, but to do so in such a way that, apart from the doctrine of Church and Ministry maintained by the Missouri Synod, also another view had the right to exist. The doctrine of the Missouri Synod was the distinctly Lutheran one, because Pastor Loehe and his friends knew very well that not only Luther's writings but also the symbols explicitly declare that the church or congregation, even if only two or three were gathered in the name of Jesus, has the power to elect and ordain church servants precisely because it has the direct and original power to “command to preach the gospel”, and the priesthood. — Although the confession thereby provides an eternally valid proof, taken from Scripture, that the congregation that has the greater thing also is due the lesser thing that follows from it, the Iowans nevertheless believe that such passages should be interpreted “historically” (as directed against the abuses of the time); such demonstrations of proof and explanations contained “subsidiary doctrinal views” which “could just as well be lacking without diminishing the substance of the confession.” In the fifth article of the Augsburg Confession, building blocks were laid for the doctrine of the
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Church, however, the theological further development was not yet finished. Only the thetical and antithetical decisions were symbolically fixed and therefore binding. It is clear that a church which wants to know what faith its pastor believes must be increasingly confused, because according to the principles of the Iowans, it does not know what doctrines and how much of the content of the symbols its pastor believes or does not believe.
With regard to Chiliasm, which in Article 17 of the Augsburg Confession is counted among the Jewish opinions and is in principle rejected (as the original Latin text also states), the Missouri Synod proceeded with all caution against those who, though caught up in such errors, were always open to the teaching that the Missouri Synod did not want to presume to have an infallible key for the interpretation of the dark passages which are found, for example, in the Revelation of John [Rev. 20:1-7], and from which the chiliasts want to base their opinions and hopes. The [Missouri] Synod rejected only the false interpretation of such prophetic passages, which offends against certain and specific doctrines of faith. In particular, it was explained to Pastor A. Schieferdecker in Altenburg, Perry Co., that the article according to which the Last Day could come at any moment, must not be violated. Otherwise the Lord Christ would not have said: “Watch what I say to you, I say to all, Watch.” [Mark 13:37] According to the Chiliastic teaching, the Day of Judgement could not come like a thief in the night, because for the time being a thousand years of ambiguity and much more could be expected. Since Pastor Schieferdecker was not able to answer with certainty three of the questions put to him by the general synod in Fort Wayne, he had to resign from the Synod, to the dismay of the entire Synod, after negotiations with him had already been conducted in vain at the Western District synod in Altenburg and at many conferences. Pastor Schieferdecker retained a like-minded portion of his previous congregation when the separation took place,
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and established a relationship with this opposition congregation, which built its own church, to the Missouri congregations in Perry County. In 1861 the Iowa Synod gave him a warm welcome, his Chiliasm being recognized by the Iowa Synod, and the gap between the Iowans and Missouri widened. Meanwhile, Der Lutheraner published a series of essays under the heading: “Chiliasm is False” [1 of 9; search “Chiliasmus ist falsch” here] (by Pastor H. Fick) and the Iowans not only had watchful neighbors in the Missourians who opposed a further development of Lutheran doctrine leading to its dissolution, but the collapse of the Buffalo Synod, that was in sight, was an example of prudence in the use of hierarchical principles. Prof. S. Fritschel travelled through Germany and the Baltic Sea provinces, asked the Dorpat faculty and other theological figures to give him their expert opinion, and finally the Iowans announced to the Missouri Synod their readiness for a public colloquium.
The Colloquium of the Representatives of the Iowa Synod and those of the Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states
was opened on November 13, 1867 in Milwaukee at the church where Pastor Fr. Lochner was then serving. The following representatives of the Iowa Synod were present: its President, Inspector G. Grossmann, Prof. S. Fritschel, his brother Prof. G. Fritschel and the deputy F. R. Becker.
Representatives of the Missouri Synod were present: its then president Prof. Walther, Dr. Sihler, Pastor J. A. Huegli, pastor Chr. Hochstetter *) and four delegates: K. Koch, C. Wassermann, F. R. Stutz and G. Bierlein.
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*) Since the delegates to the colloquium held in Milwaukee were chosen from the individual districts of the Missouri Synod, it happened that the then small Eastern District, which in the summer of the same year 1867 had been replaced by several, formerly Buffalo
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Since the Missouri Synod had taken offence above all at the Iowa Synod's commitment to Chiliasm, it was considered best on Missouri’s part that this point be cleared up first if unity and peace were sought through the Colloquium. The Iowans, especially G. Fritschel, protested against this, partly for the sake of the ordering, partly because it would treat them as non-Lutherans. Although they were reassured with respect to the latter imputation, the Missourians nevertheless gave in, and the colloquium began with a discussion of “Position on the Symbols”. The Missourians accused the Iowans of saying that it is a dangerous principle to say that the statements and proofs do not belong to the Confessions, insofar as this obliges every pastor: “A pastor’s stance must be (W.) that he says: Dear people, you have committed me to the Confessions, I have sworn to teach and preach to you as they teach, for I am convinced that they contain nothing contrary to the teachings of Holy Scripture. But if I ever find that I consider a doctrine of the symbols to be wrong and cannot preach anymore, I promise to resign as an honest man.” When it was replied that not every incidental doctrine in the
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Pastors and congregations, the writer of these lines was chosen as a delegate for the colloquium. I would still regret today having accepted the call to this important position, for which I already felt incapable because of my previous position, if I had not received great blessing for my person from my participation in this colloquium. It became clear to me there all the more that the strength of the Missouri teachers did not rest both in their attachment to the symbols, but rather in their fear of God's Word! [Kramer: respect for the Word of God] Is. 66:2. It was said there: “All that is Biblical is churchly; a doctrine may or may not be contained and fixed in the symbols, if it is only in the Holy Scriptures.” The symbols themselves contain only the right confession of Holy Scripture and all its doctrines. While all sorts of human authorities from old and new times were used in trying to attack the position of the Missouri Synod, it became all the more apparent that the Missourians are in the Scriptures, but their opponents are beside them.
Author's note.
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symbols is binding, and it would be wrong to accuse someone who says this of heresy, Prof. Walther replied: This was not called a heresy by us either, but an eternal quarrel and dispute would arise in the Church about what belongs to the essential and what to the unessential, what is binding and what is not binding in the symbols, if one were to declare doctrines in the symbols to be not binding also for the Pastor who subscribes the Confessions. If someone should find a doctrine in the symbols that he does not want to be committed to, he should say so in advance, so that the congregation knows how it is with its pastor. If it were a mere incidental point, such an exception would not be much of a difference.
When an insignificant point (of the perpetual virginity of Mary) was subsequently cited as an example and asked whether such a point was also to be included in the binding character, it was immediately explained that no problems were understood to be included under the binding doctrines of faith. The symbolic books also contain problematic things, i.e. things that are not clearly revealed in God's Word, that is where that example belongs. “We also did not think of including the problems among the less important doctrines. By doctrines we have always understood truths truly revealed in God's Word, nothing else, and God help me that I never forget that everything that which is set before faith as doctrine must be revealed in God's Word, for God's Word is above the Church.” (W.) Since the Iowans had promoted Joh. Gerhard to the effect that one could not reach agreement in less important doctrines of faith in this life, Prof. Walther immediately showed that S. Fritschel had omitted the words of Gerhard in his quotation, in which he says that one who is not stubborn and who does not violate the foundation of faith, will therefore not be separated from the body of the church immediately. “It goes without saying (W.) that we do not deny church fellowship to someone who is not yet clear on a less important point.” After Missouri once again declared:
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“If you exclude as non-binding only that which is not clearly and explicitly revealed in God's Word, we are quite satisfied with it,” *) all the colloquents agreed in the sentence: That everything that is found in the symbols of the doctrines of faith is confessionally binding.”
Then the negotiation began about what is meant by a problem or by what is an open question, as the Iowans talked about them.
Among the points presented by the Missouri Synod against the Iowa Synod before the start of the negotiations was the following, with respect to the so-called open questions:
“What strikes us here is first of all that those points are declared to be open questions on which no symbolic decisions have yet been laid down in the confessions. Then, that open questions are also called those points which are indeed present in the symbols but have not yet passed through the struggle, in short ‘everything individual, not historically demanded’, especially the doctrines of Church and Ministry and those of the Last Things.” Prof. Walther continues: "We believe that nothing can be an open question that God has already decided in his Word, whether or not it is in the symbols, whether in a conclusion or in a casual remark, because the Mouth of Truth declares that those who are the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, they shall not enter into it, are those who make void the least commandment and teach people thus.” With this we do not mean that if someone considers a doctrine clearly revealed in God's Word to be an open question, this error immediately justifies a division in the Church. We well know that only he can be called a heretic who has been admonished and convinced so that he knows that he has overcome himself in his inner being
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*) See: Stenographisch aufgezeichnetes Kolloquium der Vertreter der Synode von Iowa und der von Missouri etc., written and published by J. P. Beyer, Pastor, Chicago, Ill., 1868.
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and has condemned himself, — — but we cannot grant that someone may teach somethings contrary to a clear Word of God, and may demand that this be tolerated. — — It seemed to us that you were paying homage to the newer theology, which believes that dogmas are formed only gradually. We therefore do not believe that the other view, as expressed in the Dorpat report, can stand. I cannot believe that the Church makes dogmatic decisions. Many newer theologians say: this matter has not yet been decided, so everyone can believe what he wants. It would be quite terrible for me if the insecure theology of Germany were to be transplanted over here".
S. Fritschel then explained that the reference was made to Dorpat only for the sake of explanation, not to represent Dorpat. *) However, when Prof. Walther said that one should put “problems” in place of the words “open questions”, Grossmann replied: “That does not cover what we understand by open questions.” To which Prof. Walther replied: “Then the matter is not yet clean.” It had now become apparent that the Iowans for such doctrines, where the error cannot be established by the church, because the agreement of the church is missing, or men as J. Gerhard, Rudelbach and other Lutheran teachers deviate from the correct doctrine (e.g. in the doctrine of Sunday) demand a church justification for both opinions! The Iowans said: “The divergent one must have the right to have and express a different conviction” and “the other side must also be entitled to be ecclesiastically justified.” — It was replied that just as Luther did not allow the naevi (weaknesses) of the old church fathers [Augustine, St. Bernard, etc.] to be made into articles of faith and rules, so we cannot now allow the naevi of our
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*) Immediately after this explanation, Pastor Franz Schmidt reported from the middle of the audience that he had received a letter from an Iowa colloquent (G. Fritschel) a fortnight before this one, in which he writes that the Dorpat report describes the standpoint that the Iowans represent. These sought to extricate themselves by the distinction between essential and non-essential.
church fathers [Gerhard, Rudelbach, etc.] to be made into our norm against Scripture and the Confessions. The doctrine of Sunday is laid down in the symbols as a doctrine of the divine Word, and therefore it is part of what obligates a pastor. When it was said that the clarity of the Scriptures was variable, Prof. Walther replied: “All articles of faith are unmistakably revealed in God's Word, — so that everyone can arrive at to clarity. For God's sake, do not continue to accuse the Holy Scriptures of obscurity because great men have not understood them. The Lutheran Church recognizes with great agreement that God has revealed the pure doctrines brightly and clearly, and only if we hold to this can the foundation of salvation remain firmly established for us.” This is not to say that one who does not fulfil this obligation is an enemy of the Lutheran Church, and there is also a great difference in saying: this one is not a Lutheran, or to say he is an erring Lutheran. At the same time he could still be a Christian. “It is a matter of whether all the doctrines presented by the Holy Scriptures and contained in the symbolic books are also confessionally binding. At the time of the Reformation, this was a major impetus for the Romanists to find so much in the Church Fathers that had been condemned by Luther. This seems to me to be your position in a moderate sense and, frightened by this, you wish, for the sake of the deviations of individuals, that exceptions should be permitted in the symbols. However the exceptions that you permit are also part of the doctrinal norm binding on conscience (norma docendi). That is certain for us and we cannot deviate from it. If the same applies to you, then we would be best advised to close the debate on this. But if your decision is different, then you can confess: “Everything that is laid down in the symbols as the doctrine of the divine Word is part of the norma docendi (doctrinal norm). If you do that, we are in agreement.” The Iowans did not accept this last suggestion of Prof. Walther, but S. Fritschel said that although he considered the doctrine of
Sunday to be a doctrine of faith, another person did not, so it could be a doctrine of faith, which not all Lutheran teachers consider to be so; and if not all Lutheran theologians accept such a doctrine, then it could not be regarded as something binding in the Lutheran symbols. — It was now proven to the Iowans that they had now taken back what they admitted the day before. Prof. Walther reproached them: “Yesterday you admitted what is written in God's Word of faith and is found in the symbols, that is symbolically established. Today you admit that the doctrine of Sunday is a doctrine of faith and is found in the symbols, but you do not want it to be symbolically fixed. You are no louder than that! To the sceptics (who doubt the Word of God) it says: The Word is not clear, you may take it this way, I may take it that way. That removes all the foundation under your feet. Not to consider doctrines of faith revealed by God's Word as unifying, and again to dismiss them as undecided — that is skepticism.” — So this difference remained in the negotiations about the position on the symbols, which has already been presented by Professor Walther: It is true that there is a difference between us here; but if you wish to establish the difference, I would ask you not to present it as if we were the rigorous people who could have no patience with the erring, while you, on the other hand, were the lenient ones; but that is the difference: we want a person to be bound by all the doctrines of faith in the symbols, but you want the person bound to be able to exclude this or that. So you say now, for example, that you want the Sunday doctrine to be exempt and you do not know what to do now, but tomorrow you may think of another, and another ten and another twenty. So it is not a single doctrine, but a principle.”
When Prof. Walther called out these words to the Iowans, he already had an idea that the main difference (the point of controversy) that emerged in this first part of the colloquium
would be twisted and distorted by the Iowans within a short time. On November 6, 1868, Gottf. Fritschel presents the point of controversy in the Brobst’s Luth. Zeitschrift as follows: “The matter (in question) is merely that the Iowans, in regard to the doctrine of Sunday, consider one of the two doctrinal views to be correct, but the other one to be an error, but not a heresy that annuls the church fellowship.” … G. Fritschel presented the Missourians as people who consider and declare the error in the doctrine of Sunday to be a heresy that divides the Church. — So it was in vain that the Missourians had repeatedly (as the above sentences indicate) declared that where a Lutheran was wrong or unclear on a minor point, one would bear with him, but it was a matter of presenting the modern false theory of “open questions” in its dangerous and terrible scope. In volume 15 of Lehre und Wehre, December 1869 [p. 359-360], is written by Prof. Walther about Gottf. Fritschel's shameful distortion of the facts, and finally, after citing the Iowan's own words contained in the stenographic protocol, he emphasized: “Everybody sees even by comparison without proof that the Iowans once declared with a full mouth the pure doctrine of Sunday as a doctrine of faith for which they are ready to ‘die’ because it is clearly and distinctly contained in the Holy Scriptures ‘according to their conviction’ (p 90), but then to ‘set it free’ (p. 110) with the same mouth as an open question, as a problematic doctrine, and grant a person who departs from it the right to teach differently (p. 83) because that doctrine is for others not taught 'clearly and unmistakably’ (p. 113) in Holy Scripture, and because it is therefore not accepted as a doctrine of faith by great theologians.”
It was clear as day that the Iowans, although they had declared unanimously in the sentence: “All the doctrines of faith contained in the symbols are confessionally binding”,
had made use of a secret reservation (reservatio mentalis); — “so we had to see ourselves betrayed after a short joy over the obtained important consensus.” (Lehre und Wehre December. 1869, p. 358).
After they had agreed in that important sentence to joy of all, Prof. Walther asked already at that time how the earlier statements of the Iowans rhymed with this declaration, e.g. “only the thetic and antithetic decisions form a binding doctrinal norm”. This would have exposed a large number of doctrines of the symbols as indifferent! The Iowans replied that in the past there had been an incomprehensible misunderstanding by the Missourians, “so what more do they want from us?” They had to be content to say that the Iowans had used very tricky expressions. “I tell you, your language seemed to us more often than a means of leading us by the nose.” Now, at the end of the negotiations on the position on the symbols, it became apparent that the Missourians had once again been led by the nose with that declaration of approval.
In regard to the chiliasm taught by Iowa, it might have seemed that the Iowans were really ready to revoke the monstrosities found in their Synodical Reports of 1858 and 1861, such as: the doctrine of a double visible future return of Christ, of a double resurrection and so forth. When Prof. Walther, at the beginning of the negotiations, wished that we should begin with the chiliasm, because we wanted to enter into the Scriptures, and win the opponents by doing so, because our conscience was not bound by the symbols but by the Scriptures, it seemed as if Professor S. Fritschel agreed for the first time, because he said that he wished to begin with the doctrine of chiliasm, “because we have a lot to take back”; however, after an introductory address by Grossmann, S. Fritschel defined this “taking back” with the following words: “Why should I conceal the fact that we have
written many things about this point which could have been expressed differently.”
With such expectations one entered the negotiations on the Iowa chiliasm. Although the Iowa Synodical Report of 1858, after the reading of the Chiliasm paper, says “A hearty unanimity took place, and the agreement of the whole Synod was perceived in an exceedingly lovely manner”, so it was now emphasized at the Colloquium that already in 1860 the Iowa Synod had declared that it had no synodical chiliasm, to which the Missourians replied, "after 1861 the Synod still speaks of ‘our chiliasm’”. It was said by this that one means that individual members have the chiliasm. The Iowans took back the fact that in that paper it was said: we do not have to proclaim half or partial, but the whole counsel of God, as a highly “misleading” expression.
When they examined what Iowa had said about the nature of the millennial kingdom, Prof. Walther explained: “It is enthusiasm [Schwärmerei] to teach that, after Christ has once come into the flesh, there will still be two returns of Christ, namely first of all the return through which the Antichrist is destroyed, some dead persons are resurrected, and the millennial kingdom will begin. Long after this future event, which is to be expected for the time being, Christ would come to judgment! On the other hand is Heb. 9:28 [from Luther’s German]: “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. But at the second time He will appear to those who wait for him for salvation.” Here the Holy Scripture teaches in clear, simple words: There is only a twofold coming of Christ. The one is past, the other, still to be expected, is for salvation. It is also very important that you quote 1 Cor. 15 as proof of your opinion, where it is quite obvious that the future of the Lord for judgment is also mentioned. If you hope for another return, tell us the passage where it is taught. When it was questioned whether such an appearance would be contrary to the analogy of Scripture, the answer was again given:
“No one is allowed to think of anything that is against the Word of Scripture itself: ‘shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation’ [KJV], and thus also for judgment; therefore no one may add a third appearance without being an enthusiast, which is tantamount to a chiliast in the historical sense. When I say a chiliast, I mean a person who believes that the Lord Christ will come before the Last Day to establish a millennial kingdom. When it was responded that the Iowa men wanted to refrain from all positive statements about the nature of this thousand year reign, the answer was, that by the fact that Iowa Synod men were erroneously applying passages from the Book of Acts to a millennium and that also 1 Cor. 15 was so applied, they were already expressing much that is erroneous about the nature of the millennium, and that in Article 17 of the Augsburg Confession it is not only the chiliasm of the old Anabaptists that is condemned, but all chiliasm which teaches a twofold return of Christ. The Iowans finally declared that what was still questionable fell under the class of appearances, a (still to be expected) twofold return of Christ was not taught by Scripture. In regard to the double resurrection, the Iowans were reproached: “There is not a word, not a hint, in Scripture that a bodily resurrection should take place before the Last Day. Revelation 20 says [Rev. 20:4]: ‘Souls of the beheaded,’ but souls are not bodies. Where Scripture speaks of the resurrection of the body, it speaks of a bodily resurrection at the Last Day.”
It was said on this by the Iowa side: “We claim nothing but one possibility,” to which was replied: “How much is not possible! But the question is whether God has said in His Word that we can expect such a resurrection (as the chiliasts expect at the beginning of their supposed millennium).”
In the final statement, the Iowans say
that they have nothing against the passages of Acts chapter 3 about the restoration of all things and Acts 1:6-9 not being extended to a thousand year kingdom. It was replied: “You should not say that you want to give in to us to please us, but from your own conviction.” The Iowans then claimed that the restoration of all things was only understood to mean that the people of Israel would come to faith again. On Acts Chapter 1 it was noted: “As soon as you understand here by the ‘kingdom’ to be established the millennial kingdom, you must think here of a separate kingdom of Israel, and that would be false; although it has been repeatedly declared by the Missourians that a general conversion of the Jews, as far as it is compatible with the proper economy of the kingdom of grace, is gladly counted among the problems. But it must not be taught in the sense that Christ wants to establish a Jewish theocracy on earth. If the article about the uncertain return of Christ at the judgment (which could happen any minute now) is not violated by this, then also the hope of better times than those assumed to be problematic would also be permissible. Such a problematic hope would then no longer be a chiliasm in the historical sense, the Missourians declared, in order not to brand anyone as a heretic.”
But the fact that in the doctrine of the Last Things there still remained a significant difference in doctrine was shown in the doctrine of the Antichrist.
The Iowans do not deny that the papacy is anti-Christian (in the general sense), but they teach among other things: “This apostasy in anti-Christianity is something we must also expect in the future, because we cannot understand by the man of sin a papacy, but only a certain, individual, human personality.” Furthermore: “But the man of sin mentioned in 2 Thess. 2 [2 Thess. 2:3-10] is a certain human personality, but for this very reason also in the future.” — It is therefore denied here what the Smalcald Articles say in Article 4, part 3 under the heading “Of the Papacy”: “This teaching shows
forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist (ipsum verum Antichristum), who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, etc. This is, properly speaking to exalt himself above all that is called God as Paul says, 2 Thess. 2:4 … … Therefore, just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle, the Pope, or (seu) Antichrist, in his rule as head or lord. For to lie and to kill, and to destroy body and soul eternally, that is wherein his papal government really consists, as I have very clearly shown in many books.” [SA 2, 4: 10-11, 14] It also says in the appendix to the Smalcald Articles [Treatise, from the German]: “In the same way all vices, as prophesied in the Holy Scriptures, rhyme with the Pope's kingdom and its members according to 2 Thess. 2:4. [Tr 39] — In Luther's last writing “Against the Roman Papacy, an Institution of the Devil” [AE 41, 257-376] is his legacy to Christians: "I mock only with my feeble mockery that those who live now and come after us should know what I thought of the Pope, the accursed Antichrist, and whoever wants to be a Christian let himself be admonished before such abomination.” This is Luther's verdict on the Pope, which we Missourians wholeheartedly endorse because, as we go through history, we see that every word of Scripture about the Antichrist finds its full fulfillment in the Papacy. In him, the Kingdom of Heaven is closed to Christians by his false doctrine, by saying that he alone has the power of the keys which Christ gave to his Church, by the fact that he has forbidden the Bible to the laity and has put all hearts in terror with his man-made commandments. Whoever does not hold with him, he says, is lost. — How is it possible that anyone can still doubt it? This is the Antichrist and God has revealed him! That is why Luther already wrote in 1522: “Therefore you should also know that the Pope is the right, true, final
Antichrist, of this all Christianity speaks, whom the Lord Jesus has begun to kill with the Spirit of His mouth, and will soon destroy and strangle with the light of His return, which we are waiting for.”
It is clear that in the confessional writings and in the last quote the Pope is mentioned as the real and final Antichrist described in 2 Thess. 2, but nevertheless S. Fritschel began to say: “Although you have quite rightly set apart the teaching of our confessional writings, this does not prevent us from seeing this passage, 2 Thess. 2, as describing an individual person. And even if everything that has been prophesied of the Pope is true, this cannot blind us to the fact that we are not seeing that we are talking about a (future) individual. The Pope can really be called the Antichrist, but this does not cancel out that this body can still grow a point or a horn, and it is a terrible injustice against us to say that we deviate with this assumption of ours from the doctrine of the church. The Missourians always cry out: ‘The Pope is the Antichrist’, and fail to recognize how much historical Christianity is left to the Papacy in comparison with unbelievers and scoffers.” — Challenged to prove that the Antichrist is not a collective person, but a future individual yet to be expected (which is why the prophesied apostasy is still to come), the Iowans replied that they had no time for this on that evening of November 18th, but Dr. v. Harless wrote — — — — (von Harless does not start from the chief place, but from John 2:18); so again a human authority was attracted as conclusive. Prof. Walther reminded them of this: “It is well known, gentlemen, that in the Lutheran Church all faithful teachers call that Antichrist, who was supposed to be an individual, a utopian Antichrist; but it is irrelevant that orthodox theologians should add others than the Pope.” — Walther emphasized the main point: “The question is whether the Pope is the real Antichrist, or whether something must first be added to this that
he may become the Antichrist? The question is whether he is already here, or whether it is true what the Iowa Synod says that he is still to be expected, because the apostasy is not yet here. For God's sake, one should not say that! After the papacy has been developing for a thousand years, it is a truly satanic trick (a ruse) that now the doctrine has arisen in Christianity, that the Antichrist is not yet here. Now Christianity is waiting for an enemy who has long since devastated it. Consider, if we take 2 Thess. 2 and hold the Pope against it, we must say that all signs are found in him; and yet he shall yet come! Yes, the enemy will take care to be seen again in the clothes in which he is already exposed. Think what a great seduction it would be now if a single person came and wanted to play the comedy again. They would do bad business after the good God has revealed the Antichrist through Luther. Those who say that the Antichrist is not yet here, deprive Christians of the salutary fear that the apostle wanted to ignite in the hearts of the Christians. Hellish powers really are there where Lutheran pastors, who have the call to teach what God revealed to the world through Luther, contradict the whole Reformation. God has spoken, has spoken by deeds, and we want to keep silent; do we want to make people secure? Don't say that we teach that as well, no, you don't see the greatest danger, you don't warn against it, it is not yet there after you. Are you not afraid of the souls that you could make secure, and so drive them into the nets of the papacy and thus into their ruin? Every heretic, every enthusiast says: Look into the Bible, only the cursed pope says: Do not look into the Bible, the Scriptures are dark, if I have decreed it, then it is an article of faith. Whoever does not believe what I have decreed is lost. Now God has revealed him as the right Antichrist, and you want to take that away from Christianity? Ah! God would bring you back from this error.”
Inspector Grossmann then told of a conversation he had had with a Missourian pastor and said at the end of his address that the papacy was leaning more and more towards evil. S. Fritschel was offended and exclaimed: I hold you responsible before the living God for having slandered us. From this Prof. Walther answered: “So I must not warn you? You take this as an act of hostility? Oh, you do not know how it is for a Lutheran heart that fears danger for pure doctrine. Oh, it is not hostility that I have spoken in this way, I only wish to show you the way back by such testimony of truth. What you say about unbelievers (see above) does not fit in here at all. The Holy Scriptures have also revealed that mockers will also come. The specific feature of the Antichrist is that he sits in the temple of God, and that he mingles with the Christians! Unbelief says: “Where is the promise of his return?” The Pope gives poison to the Christians instead of the bread of life! Also do not believe that we say that the scoffers are not so dangerous, but we tell the people as far as our voice can reach them: There are two dangers, one from the papacy, the other from the scoffers, so we must be vigilant! It means to preach the one and not to keep silent about the other. I am convinced that you are in a great deception. I am not saying that you are drawing souls over to the Pope, but they will go over without wanting to, because you are expecting another, greater danger. Even the gentle Spener says, and you know it well: “To please the papacy we cannot let any article of our faith go as that would mean being disloyal to the truth itself, which is undivided, a whole; so we cannot give up or abandon this part of our doctrine either, that the Pope is the Antichrist, in whose knowledge (after others have already declared him to be so long ago) the Reformation has strengthened us, and we are right not to resign (Spener’s
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Reformation sermon of the year 1788).” Furthermore, in an earlier sermon on the Day of Penitence and Prayer, he refers to the fact that this point of doctrine is not only taught in the private writings of theologians, but is also expressly contained in the Smalcald Articles, which are a part of our Church's general Confessions. *) Now we know that our Lutheran theologians mean to say that this is a collective concept and not an individual person. — Inspector Grossmann was now again aiming at the fact that they, the Iowans, should be branded as heretics by the Missourians for the sake of this difference, of which Prof. Walther finally said: “You do not believe what is written in the symbols; the fact remains that in your publications the sentence is written: the Antichrist is still to be expected.”
Since also the final declaration of the Iowans concludes with the reproach that the Missourians thereby committed a grave irresponsible sin of terrible consequence, that they for the sake of the difference in the doctrine of the Antichrist deny the Iowans church fellowship, the representatives of the Missouri Synod finally declare: “Insofar as the Iowa Synod does not define and roundly revoke what it says about this in its publications of 1858, that 2 Thess. 2 is to be understood as a certain individual human personality, which for this very reason is also to be understood in the future, that one must also expect the apostasy in anti-Christianity in the future — —, we cannot concede to it that it is faithful in this point. This alone, however, is by no means, as our opponents state, the reason why we cannot stand, confess, work and fight with her in the church, but rather other well-known differences, some of which have not been compensated either by aReformation sermon of the year 1788 round revocation or by a round confession, and some of which
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*) In the same place Spener preaches: “Whoever does not recognize the papal kingdom for the antichristian kingdom is not yet standing so firmly that he could not be misled into it, but whoever finds himself convinced of this in his heart will be quite secure from falling away.”
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have not yet been discussed due to lack of time (concerning the power and the Office of the Keys was not officially discussed). However, after the approach that has already been made, we are by no means giving up hope for the future; God grant that a churchly agreement will soon be reached.” —
With these final statements, this colloquium came to an end.
The colloquents on the part of the Missouri Synod, of course, had to fight on and on, fidelity to God's Word suffered no differently, but they were filled with more hope in the beginning than they were in the end. The Church is not served by political treaty stipulations, therefore Professor Walther repeatedly declared: “We want to achieve complete unity, we want to win you! What jubilation it would be, what a blessing for the Church, if we could reach out our hands to one another and henceforth work together in complete unity of faith!” But what was the purpose that the representatives of Iowa pursued? Firstly, as Inspector Grossmann said in one place, to justify themselves with respect to the suspicions to which they had been subjected and, accordingly, to clarify their position; secondly, to present the Missourians as such people, who wanted to brand anyone who differed from them on a minor point as a heretic! The fact that the Missourians nevertheless still talk about an approach in the final declaration was certainly a surprise to many. The essays of G. Fritschel in the Brobst’s Monatshefte that were touched upon above quickly ruined the approach. The close relationship that exists, for example, between Petersen, who was once removed from his office for the sake of his chiliasm, and the chiliasts of Neuendettelsau, has been proven, and an honored correspondent in Lehre und Wehre, who traces the history of the Iowa Synod up to the year 1875, writes in No. 10, Vol. 21: already in the first sentence of the proceedings of the Iowa Synod meeting at the end of May 1875 one had argued that the Synod leaves room for such theological
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opinions as Chiliasm and the conversion of the Jews, and that it also gave room for other opinions. It was left up to each person to decide for himself, so it is still the case today that one can teach chiliasm from one pulpit in the Iowa Synod and reject it from the other. Only in one respect did they agree that it was a grave sin to include any such doctrine (as, in their opinion, chiliasm is) among the doctrines of faith that determine church fellowship; and that is basically, continues the correspondent, the old aversion and enmity against orthodoxy, which is peculiar to chiliasm. Already since the time of Urbanus Rhegius, the Lutheran Church treated those teachings of Chiliasm as a prophecy not according to the analogy to faith, Rome. 12:7. — “Chiliasm cannot be public teaching (doctrina publica) without the Lutheran Church denying its character. Whoever wants to make it a doctrina publica, or allows it to be granted as such (as the Iowa Synod does), thereby causes the separation of the Church from the orthodox Church, which may have patience with the erring, but can never grant a right to error. — “But the doctrine of the personal (future) Antichrist is closely connected with chiliasm. — For the personal Antichrist, whom the chiliasts expect, will appear before the Millennium (their millennial kingdom), and must therefore first be annihilated; consequently, it cannot be the Pope (who is not so bad, so the Iowans think). The antichiliastic Lutherans now have every reason to hold to the doctrine of the papacy as the collective Antichrist, when they consider that this doctrine is objected to in favor of the enthusiastic chiliasm. But there are even deeper reasons not to give this doctrine away. The Reformation is from God through the Word of God. But the papacy is the negation (denial) of the Reformation and its divine principles. It rose up against them and thus against God, not only with word and writing, but also with fire and sword. This made it
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certain that the prophecy of Paul was fulfilled by the Antichrist, an interpretation that is often found before the Reformation (e.g. in Wycliffe). This insight became a general one in the church. There is ample evidence for this in Seckendorf's history of the Reformation. The faithful dogmatics hold to the Reformation interpretation; it has not been refuted by history, but only confirmed. Yet this interpretation of the Antichrist is not itself a prophecy, but it only sees the fulfillment of prophecy (to which this is added), as the Church always sees it. This is how Peter sees it in Acts 2:16. If it is said that the Pope is not monstrous enough, we ask just where does 2 Thess. 2 fit in, if not on the papacy? Moreover, the Antichrist of the orthodox Church is here; but the monster of Chiliasm does not appear; so the Church also has the inner hidden glory, but that of the Millennium (the Millennial Kingdom) is awaited in vain! In the following it is emphasized that the doctrine of the Antichrist is connected and intertwined with the enlightenment given by God, and is laid down in the Confessions of the Church, therefore Hebr. 10:2, applies here. Once a truth has been recognized, it must not be abandoned, whether it is of primary or secondary *) nature. Just as the enlightenment through the
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*) The doctrine of the Antichrist, taken in the strict sense, is not usually considered to be a primary or secondary article of faith. But this does not detract from the importance of this doctrine, for it is clearly revealed in 2 Thess. 2. It is not only a conclusion from history, but from the historically fulfilled Scriptures. All the signs given will be fully found only in the Pope, in him however completely. That is why Scripture did not have to say first with explicit words: The Pope is the Antichrist! Jesus of Nazareth, too, had to be recognized as the true Messiah because all the characteristics were found in Him which the Messiah was supposed to have according to the Old Testament prophecies, since God did not want to call out to everyone from heaven: This is my beloved Son! Before there was an Antichrist in the true sense, it was not necessary to know that there was one and who he was. But when the Antichrist arose, the Church of God immediately realized that the
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Word is always the same, so the Church must always look at the abominations of the Antichrist with the same eye and — remember Luther's admonition: God fill you with hatred for the Pope! —
Such demonstrations of proof are admittedly not very popular in Germany today. There one is rather accustomed to think that it was forgivable for a Luther to call the Pope the Antichrist in the heat of his struggle; nowadays it is only the Missourians who bring forth such a warmed-over quirk from the old dogmatics! But isn't the papacy today just the same with its claims and its propaganda? Hasn't the dogma of infallibility only made it more acute? What North America has to expect from the Pope may be indicated by the statement below, which comes from the pen of a Roman church prelate who was recently transferred from St. Louis to Philadelphia. *) Although people in
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Pope at Rome was it, and Luther and the old theologians proved it powerfully. Dannhauer is right to say: “Either no Antichrist will come, or it will be he who presides over Rome, to whom all marks fit.”
*) In the following way the Shepherd of the Valley, a Roman publication in St. Louis and the organ of the bishop of this diocese, shows its true color:
“We confess that the Roman Catholic Church is intolerant — that is, it uses all means within its power to eradicate heresy and sin; but its intolerance is the logical and necessary consequence of its infallibility. She alone has the right to be intolerant, for she alone has the truth. The Church tolerates heretics where she is compelled to do so, but she hates them with a mortal hatred, and uses all her power to ensure their extermination. Once the Catholics here in this country will be in the possession of a significant majority, — which will certainly be the case in time, although it may be a long time coming, then we must end religious freedom in this Republic of the United States. Our enemies say so, and we believe them. Our enemies know that we do not pretend to be better than our church, and for that matter, their history lies openly before all eyes. So they know how the Roman Church has dealt with the
Germany are no longer accustomed to such clear language, where recently the Roman Catholics only regretted that Luther had not received his deserved punishment, the St. Louis Shepherd of the Valley agrees entirely with the propositions of the well-known Syllabus [of Pius IX]. — The Roman clerical party is well organized, it knows what it wants, and like petrels the Jesuits circle the German Empire! But where are the spiritual weapons with which the papacy was once so successfully fought and laid down in many places? On the Protestant side it is believed to do more necessary things now, when one tries to develop dogmas and “theological opinions”. This modern scholarliness of the newer theologians does not frighten the papacy. Twenty years ago a Doellinger praised the great influence of the Roman priests and bishops on their people, whereas the Protestant Church is in alienation from its pastors. Among all the well-known German theologians, there was no longer a Protestant teacher who found his faith in the Lutheran symbols! Even the Lutheran doctrine of justification has been abandoned by today's theologians in Germany! And yet the simple-minded preaching of righteousness that we have in Christ is, as Luther said, the main means against the Pope. But whoever breaks away from the pure Lutheran Church and diminishes its doctrines, works into the hands of the Pope. That is why Cardinals Manning and Newman
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heretics in the Middle Ages and how she deals with them today, wherever she has the power. We do not think of denying these historical facts any more than we think of rebuking the saints of God and the princes of the Church for what they have done and approved in this respect.” —
So much for the Roman Catholic paper. It would be good if people who see in the papal party a dear sister church, as is the case in Germany with many Protestant pastors, could recognize from such pronouncements that the pope still resembles the bear-wolf that lies on man, as Luther writes of papal tyranny.
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now boast that Protestantism is a thing of the past, that it exists only as a political power and not as a definable confession in which the masses agree. Döllinger thinks that the disruption and decay of the Protestant conditions have led to the fact that one imagines a future church of its own kind, namely a modern millennial empire! In it the desperation in which Protestantism finds itself is expressed. — But it is also to be feared that the desperation which seizes some minds where they have lost their firm hold on the Word of God, where indifferentism and the lukewarmness toward the Confessions is rampant, will finally lead many a soul to the Roman priests, because they are the ones who claim an infallible authority. The newer, insecure theology, which abandons the legacy of the Reformation, is powerless against such enemies. Even a syncretistic synod like the Iowans is unable to fight the papacy in the footsteps and armor of Luther. From the time he drew back from the Missouri Synod, Pastor Loehe was in the habit of flirting with the papacy so often and praising the Roman founders of religious orders and saints so highly that the Lutheran Dean St. [?] felt compelled to reprove him on this account. While the Missouri Synod is accused of traditionalism and repristrination of the old, the Iowa Synod holds the newer tradition, which comes from Neuendettelsau, all the more firmly. “May they listen to the spirit of Paul, and not to the dead of Neuendettelsau,” and as long as the Iowa Synod does not comply with this wish of that reviewer, the judgment of Dr. Sihler, who also was a participant in the colloquium at Milwaukee, will still be valid: “This pseudo-Lutheran synod, from which, however, several members resigned for the sake of conscience, still insists on its rocking back and forth, in its slippery ‘yes and no’ theology, in its lax attitude to the confessional writings and in its acceptance of the so-called ‘open questions’ contrary to Scripture. It is and remains a copy of Loehe's later erroneous views.”
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Pastor A. Schieferdecker’s resignation from the Iowa Synod and return to the Missouri Synod.
For all the dexterity which the Iowa’s spokesmen employed both at the colloquium and elsewhere, a certain lack in them became apparent, which was bound to become increasingly offensive to honest minds, the lack of truthfulness. — In the opinion of the founder of the Iowa Synod, it should be a corrective to the Missouri Synod. It turned out the opposite, however, and instead of developing some doctrine, as the Iowans first had in mind, the Iowans needed to be corrected and return to the old Lutheran faithfulness. If the Iowans had only openly confessed this, the special position which Iowa had taken against Missouri from the beginning, because it was supposed to represent the direction of Neuendettelsau in the doctrine of the Last Things, of Church and Ministry, etc., would have had to cease of its own accord.
This is what Pastor A. Schieferdecker irrefutably reproaches the synod with in his statement, first published in Der Lutheraner, My Resignation from the Iowa Synod [p. 113 ff.], subsequently as a tract. Although it might have seemed that the Milwaukee colloquium was unsuccessful, a number of Iowan pastors appeared at subsequent synodical meetings demanding unreserved commitment to the Lutheran symbols and protesting against the fickle, uncertain position of the voting leaders and the Iowa Synod in general. Eventually, Pastors W. Vomhof, A. G. Doehler, and others, along with Pastor Schieferdecker, resigned from the Iowa Synod and moved partly to the Missouri Synod and partly to the Wisconsin Synod. Pastor Schieferdecker had already declared when he had to leave the Missouri Synod in 1857 because of his position at that time, that as soon as he came to a different conviction, he would confess to it. He also did not shy away from making a public statement, in the beginning of the
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the 1870s in Der Lutheraner, at the very beginning: “I must first confess that I was in error when I thought that the prophecy in question, Rev. 20 of the millennial reign of the saints with Christ, was to be interpreted as an intermediate realm, between the present kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory, that it would be as a precursor to the latter. It mixed into each other, in this conception, what must be separated quite strictly here on earth to preserve the right doctrine of the kingdom of Christ. For as different as the cross and the crown are from the state of Christ's humiliation from the state of his exaltation, so different is the kingdom of the cross and the kingdom of glory; Scripture knows nothing of a middle kingdom, which would be partly still the kingdom of the cross and partly already the kingdom of glory.” This unclear, erroneous conception, together with the error in regard to the general resurrection on the Last Day, which was proved by John 5:28; 2 Tim. 4:8 and most definitely by John 6:39, 40:44, in connection with the error concerning a twofold return of Christ had to come to light in his earlier answers to the questions put to him in Fort Wayne; but he now renounces his earlier Chiliastic errors out of an innermost conviction. — Furthermore [Schieferdecker declares], the Iowa Synod had deceived itself into believing that by drawing up these chiliastic doctrines it had initiated a further development of the doctrine with the aid of the Word of God, etc., when first of all, this chiliasm was not something new, and secondly, this supposed development of the doctrine by God's guidance had to be reversed. Gradually the retreat had been initiated. “It was the same with the doctrines of church and ministry.” Here too the Iowa Synod had become entangled in the most obvious contradictions. — Therefore, it would have been the duty of the Iowa Synod to seriously ask itself the question whether it was really right in its fight against Missouri, or whether it had not itself originally paid homage to a false principle! If she had not deliberately wanted to deceive herself,
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she should have seen that she had been forced to make some considerable concessions, especially in the battle with Missouri. The Iowa Synod, too, had been clearly proved in Der Lutheraner that in the past they had taught and spoken differently in some matters than they do now; that it was wrong and dishonest to try to cover up errors that had been made in the past by saying that they had been misunderstood, that they had not had this or that opinion, since it was clearly visible in the earlier writings. The Iowa Synod was also reproached with the same thing, not only by its opponents, the Missourians, but also by its friends and fathers in Neuendettelsau under a different point of view. — Since the Iowa Synod had nevertheless preferred to insist on its self-contradiction, to confess in one breath to the whole faith and doctrinal content of the symbols, and to still hold on to certain doctrinal opinions, which were not at all correct with the doctrines of the symbols and the fathers, Schieferdecker had to declare his withdrawal. In the end, to be safe, it was declared that the Synod had not made any substantial change in its position toward the Confessions, and that he and all those with him were deeply saddened by this. They would have welcomed it with joy and thanksgiving toward God as progress for the better if the Iowa Synod returned to a clear and simple confession of the symbols. But it has been shown that the leaders of the synod do not act for reasons of conscience, but out of other human considerations. Also at the Iowa Synodical convention held in Madison, so Schieferdecker says, truth and honesty had demanded an unapologetic confession, whereby one had renounced the former direction as a wrong one, but this had not taken place despite repeated, urgent demands of members of the Synod. Since one had never dismissed the errors by a revocation, but had only tried to give them a more comfortable interpretation, these causes (six causes are given against the Iowa Synod) led him and others to leave the Iowa Synod in peace, rather than
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to remain in it under the consciousness of an inner, irreconcilable dissent (a difference in doctrine). *)
The deviations from the Confessions of the Church and the whole special position of the Iowa Synod were a fruit of the false idea, as if the Lutheran Church needed a doctrinal development, which had not yet come to an end with the Reformation, etc. Pastor Schieferdecker, on the other hand, testifies: “Luther did not intend to develop any doctrine during his Reformation, but only to purify the corrupt Church from the leaven of the false godless doctrine of the Pope. To set a doctrinal development as a goal is the very dangerous, unholy principle of modern theology, which with its results has only decomposed and corrupted the pure doctrine handed down from the fathers.” — On the other hand, in relation to the Missouri Synod, loyalty to the Confessions could not be the cause whereby the Iowa Synod could be prevented from church union with the Missouri Synod. Even its opponents give it the most honorable testimony in this regard. A testimony is quoted on this in the memorial of Inspector Bauer, in which it says at the end: “The most beautiful testimony is given by the Kirchliche Mitteilungen published in Neuendettelsau with the words: ‘The Missouri Synod represents the conscience of the Lutheran Church in the matter of confessional loyalty. We give it this recognition without any reservation’.”
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*) The opponents of the Missouri Synod often reproached it for having been too harsh in the past against Pastor Schieferdecker, who had only had Chiliastic views. However, P. G. Schieferdecker would hardly have come to the full realization of the truth, if the Missouri Synod had kept silent about his mistakes at that time. It is precisely because he often characterized his chiliasm as a mere opinion that he should not have caused a schism for the sake of an uncertain opinion. This is especially reproached to him in the open letter of Prof. Walther, which is printed on pages 255-270 in Pastor F. Köstering's History of the Emigration of the Saxon Lutherans. In this heart-winning letter, Prof. Walther addressed Pastor Schieferdecker as his “still dear old friend!” And now the friendship is also completely restored.
After Pastor Schieferdecker had asked the Iowans once again to examine their position with a rather sober and unprejudiced look to see if it was really tenable according to God's Word and our Confessions, he concludes with the wish, which the readers of these lines will also agree with: May it please the infinite mercy of God to give the Lutheran Church in this country ever more unity in the truth! Amen.
In the next Part 15, Chapter 11.
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