DL7c: Spangenberg; Schaff: "no longer appropriate"; Lochner: "Pope and Turk remain"

      This continues from Part 7b and its Excursus (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting Der Lutheraner, 1888-1934, in English. — First we are treated to a testimony to the greatness of the original hymn that Luther wrote.  Then Lochner answers the objection of modernists for changing Luther's words.  — From Der Lutheraner, vol. 50 (1894), p. 204-205:

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“Keep us, O Lord, by Thy Word, And prevent the murder by Pope and Turk.”

[by Pastor Friedrich Lochner; cont'd from Part 7b]

 

In the preface to the fourth part of his sermons on Luther's hymns, the Mansfeld preacher Cyriacus Spangenberg writes of this hymn, among other things: “Oh, it is a precious, a powerful, a mighty little hymn, which has so far stopped many misfortunes, and great treasures of divine grace and heavenly goods have been preserved and protected with it. The devil also noticed and felt very soon that this hymn, sung in faith, would not do him a little bad harm and would then be promoted, which is why he was so bitterly hostile to it and tried many things against it: pastors and schoolmasters, who had caused it to be sung in churches and schools, chased away by it and deprived of their services; often had it forbidden by ungodly authorities to be sung and spoken; brought pious Christian subjects into misery by it; also some into heavy imprisonment and not a few to death.”

Finally, a word about the fact that we still have reason to sing about the Turk's [Mohamedans or Muslims] murdering and to pray with Luther against them. 

The Reformed Professor Dr. Ph. Schaff, who died in New York last year [1893], said in the introduction to his hymnal, published in 1860, that the “Prevent the murder by Pope and Turk” [Steur des Pabsts und Türken Mord] was no longer appropriate in our time, especially in our America, and made the pointed remark with regard to our hymnal that it might have “the above passage out of consideration for the American Turks, the Mormons in Utah.” As far as the Pope is concerned, the experience of three decades has taught us well enough how much we need our prayer hymn even in these times, “especially in America”. But as far as the Turk is concerned, we may equally continue to pray against them with our hymn, despite their “the obvious sickness [Schwindsucht]”. 

According to the Scriptures, Pope and Turk are and remain the “two arch-enemies of Christ and His churches,” 2 Thess. 2 and Dan. 11:26-45, 7:8, 20-26, and Ezek. 38 and 39, compare with Revelation 20:8-9. The Turk may have become the “sick man” with regard to worldly power and therefore can no longer attack Christianity with fire and sword as they did in former times [which they have now re-asserted with a vengeance because Christians quit praying against them] — his fierce hatred of Christians and his thirst for Christian blood is still the same and still breaks out soon here and soon there against the Christians living in his territories.  

Think, for example, of the Christian bloodbath in Syria some thirty years ago [1860]. Even if we are safe from the sword of the Turk, the apostolic word, 1 Cor. 12:26, still applies: “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.” Then, in a spiritual way, everything that, apart from the Pope, wants to push Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Savior, from the throne of divine majesty, belongs to the realm of Mohamed, the false prophet, thus all gross and subtle deniers of the divinity of Christ and the divinity of the Holy Scriptures [now the LC-MS and their “divine-human” Scriptures]; for this is the main feature of the religion of Mohamed, that it allows Christ to be only a mere man and at the same time places Him below Mohamed, and that it substitutes the abominable Koran for the Holy Scriptures. Since such deniers of Christ and the Scriptures are becoming more and more numerous, it is all the more necessary that we still pray against the Turk today and therefore continue in our churches and schools and homes to sing Luther's powerful children's hymn “against the two arch-enemies of Christ and His churches, the Pope and the Turk.”       F. L.   [Friedrich Lochner]

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Although Lochner admits the modernist reasoning that the Pope and Turk are not as effective in their power to murder today, yet he stands firm on the Scripture and Lutheran Confessions. It appears that the famous Reformed theologian Schaff speaks for today's LC-MS on the doctrine of the Antichrist. And Lochner also teaches just as Walther and Pieper on the divinity, not the "divine-and-human" nature, of Holy Scripture. — In the concluding Part 7d, I show a side-by-side comparison between Harrison and Lochner.