Who are the Pfaffen?
[by C. F. W. Walther; Part 6]
The third class of Pfaffen is formed by a type of preacher who claims to be the most powerful fighters against all Pfaffish dominion [Pfaffentum or “clericalism”] and for light, enlightenment, freedom and progress. These are the rationalistic Pfaffen. They do not believe that the Bible is God's Word, they do not believe that Christ is the true, only begotten Son of God, they do not believe that Christ is the Redeemer of the world, who reconciled the world to God by the shedding of His blood on the cross, and that therefore man becomes righteous and saved before God solely through faith in Christ's merit, so dearly acquired, they do not consider Christianity to be the only true and only saving religion revealed directly by God, they do not believe in the miracles and prophecies reported in the Holy Scriptures, they do not believe in the triune God, they do not believe in the regenerating and saving power of Holy Baptism, they do not believe in the mystery of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion, they believe that one can be saved in all religions —
and yet they appear as Christian preachers and take up Christian pulpits only to eat the bread of the church; yet they baptize, yet they hold a supper which they call the Lord's Supper, yet they pretend to bless engaged couples in church, to confirm the baptized youth in their baptismal covenant, to bury the dead in a Christian manner! They regard the Christian ministry as a trade, a craft, a business by which they can make their living most easily and comfortably.
Some say outright that the Bible is not God's Word, but only a human book, [Dr. Martin Scharlemann, Dr. Martin Franzmann, the LC–MS and Dr. Samuel Nafzger] which contains many good things, but also many false and superstitious things; that Christ, though an exceedingly wise and virtuous teacher, was only a man; that God is not Triune, and that man is his own redeemer; they therefore no longer baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and thus form so-called free congregations; others, however, do not speak so freely; in order to deceive and catch simple-minded, ignorant Christians, they also speak of God's Word, of God's Son, of the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and baptize according to the wording in the Triune God, and only give it to their confidants to understand [page 51-2] that they still have to speak and do so for the sake of the stupid rabble. It is difficult to say which of these two kinds of so-called preachers is the worst. In any case, both of them are nothing but worthless belly-Pfaffen [Bauchpfaffen], the most despicable. The real country and people deceivers, the most miserable spiritual jugglers and conjurers, the meanest religious charlatans, quacks and counterfeiters are without doubt those rationalists who believe just as little as those “spokesmen” of the so-called “free churches,” [not to be confused with Lutheran Free Church separated from German State Church] and who are the most despicable of all, and who nevertheless pretend to be not only Christian, but even Protestant, evangelical, yes, Lutheran preachers, and therefore, in order to give themselves a semblance, make use of even more Christian, pious, orthodox phrases and forms. [Gottesdienst!]
They call those who believe in God's Word from the heart and therefore preach it faithfully hypocrites and Pfaffen; they do it like those pickpockets who, in order not to be recognized and to divert attention from themselves, when their theft has happened in a crowd and is noticed, shout loudest to the crowd: “Stop the thief!” What in the Old Testament was the service of the calf that Jeroboam had set up among the ten tribes and for which he had made special priests [Priester], that in the New Testament is the so-called worship service [Gottesdienst] that these rationalist Pfaffen hold. As Jeroboam said of his two golden calves, “Behold, there are thy gods” [1 Kings 12:28] (in Hebrew: thy Elohim), “Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!” (1 Kings 12:28 LED), as Jeroboam thus passed off his idolatry for the service of the true God of Israel: so now the rationalistic Pfaffen pass off their naturalistic worship [Cultus] for a Christian service. —
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