"Finally we take a look at Walther the editor—one of his most important functions. Through Lehre und Wehre… and Der Lutheraner Walther exerted a strong influence toward orthodox Lutheranism."
Foreword of the Editor
to the
Fourteenth Year of Der Lutheraner.
[by C.F.W. Walther]
In the autumn of 1838, about 800 Lutherans with Lutheran preachers, a certain Pastor Stephan from Dresden at their head, emigrated from Saxony to Missouri and arrived here in January 1839, except some fifty who were lost at sea and found their grave in it. Those Lutherans were under the delusion that they were the most faithful Lutherans, indeed many of them thought that they were the only faithful sons of the Church of the Reformation left in the world, that Germany had fallen and would never rise again, that God's judgments were approaching in this country and that nothing could withstand them any longer, and that the time had therefore come to flee. Matt. 24:15-16. However sincerely these Saxons meant what they said — to a great extent they left everything they held dear in this world and went to a country unknown to them at that time, from which they mostly expected and desired nothing but freedom of conscience and worship — they were themselves, however, without suspecting it, nothing less than true faithful members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The aforementioned Pastor Stephen was the soul of the whole. He sought the strict Lutheranism in contrast to the unionist, sectarian and enthusiastic nature of the | new faith, in that he thought and taught essentially as a Romanist or rather as a papist, namely of the Church, of the Office [of Ministry], succession, authority, constitution, etc., and exercised a practice in keeping with this. The visible Lutheran church was to him the church apart from which there is no salvation; and since he believed that he and those who followed him alone were the visible Lutheran church, it was considered a foregone conclusion among the Saxons who blindly followed him that whoever wished to be saved must flee with them and gather where the existence of a truly Lutheran church was possible. Those who did not want to leave the fatherland were considered to be, if not already lost, then in the most urgent danger of their souls. Many, therefore, who were in confusion and distress in their consciences, often torn asunder, with bleeding hearts and weeping eyes, the most sacred bonds of natural love, blood, and profession, in order to follow and be with the “emigrating church” only. In like manner as the Romanizing doctrine of the Church, so was the effect of the Romanizing doctrine of the Ministry. The office of preacher stood as a mediator between Christ and the Christians, through which alone all graces and blessedness could be obtained.
The ban of this Office, no matter how arbitrarily it might be imposed, went about the “church” like a speaking ghost with its finger lifted. Unconditional obedience in all things not contrary to God's Word, it was said, was owed by the “layman” to the “spiritual office,” in the face of God's disgrace and danger of eternal salvation. Even the secretly | harboring of misgivings, within the heart, against the officials, against their integrity, or even only against the expediency of their orders in the secular and ecclesiastical spheres, was regarded as a sure sign of a Judas heart. 1)
1) Those who know the teaching and practice of Pastor [J. A. A.] Grabau at Buffalo and of his followers, will grant us that both are by all means nothing more than a second edition and perhaps still more obstinate implementation of Stephanism.
Thus a dark spirit of servile fear and distrust pervaded the community [Gemeinschaft], which even friends no longer dared to exclude. Hundreds felt the heavy pressure that lay upon them, and sighed for redemption, without knowing in what this redemption must consist of. The writings of the old godly fathers were eagerly read, also the confessional writings of our church, but with the glasses of preconceived opinions. [So with today’s LCMS!] The warning and punishing voice resounded everywhere: You are not what you claim to be, true Lutherans, but pilgrims to Rome and servants of men. But because this voice came mostly from those who evidently did not themselves walk faithfully in the footsteps of the fathers of our church, this voice was taken for the voice of temptation. But what happened? — The God who searches the hearts, who knows what is the mind of the spirit, and when we do not know what we should pray for, as is proper, represents us in the best way with inexpressible groaning, this God finally heard the groaning of the wretched for help in the spring of the year 1839, the meaning of which the prayers themselves had mostly not understood. [Page 2] God, then, made the man who stood at the head [Stephan] irrefutably manifest as an unfaithful and dishonest one. Hereby, of course, the foundation fell away for all that had believed on his authority. The natural consequence of this was that the very doctrines which, as was well known, had not been learned from the symbols of the church and from the writings of the old faithful fathers, immediately came into question; and behold! very soon it became evident that these doctrines also contradicted those contained in the confessions of our church [Walther gives credit to the Confessions, not himself] (the credibility of which nothing had been able to shake). In short, it was seen with horror that, in the opinion that they were the right true Lutheran Church, even the only one, they had moved further and further away from its doctrine and — had drawn nearer to Rome. Because of this, and for the sake of all the many sins that had flowed from it, they humbled themselves heartily before God and man, and now took pains to purify themselves more and more in doctrine and life.
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