John Bunyan, Baptist, goes Back To Luther, mostly

      While researching and translating C. F. W. Walther's 1879 Western District convention essay for a blog series, I ran across his comments on one of Christianity's most notable writers, John Bunyan, and his famous book The Pilgrim's Progress. Walther almost never gives positive remarks on a Reformed writer, so what will he say about John Bunyan's famous work? 

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The Baptist John Bunyan, the well-known author of Pilgrim’s Progress, an interesting and edifying book, but mixed with Reformed leaven, lay ill for years with the false doctrine of predestination of the Calvinists — for the Baptists were formerly strict Calvinists, and in part still are. When he was in such dire straits that he no longer knew which way was up, an old, torn but still complete book came into his hands, of which he could see that many a tear had already fallen on its pages. It was the English translation of Luther's Epistle to the Galatians. Knowing that Luther had been an extraordinarily famous man, he began to read it, and the deeper he got into it, the brighter he was illuminated by grace, until he was completely freed from all his temptations. He confessed that, after the Bible, this book was without doubt the best that existed in the world, for none was so easy to heal a wounded conscience. A Baptist had to confess this! —  [cp. All Glory To God, p. 246]

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One may note Walther's caution about "Reformed leaven" in the Baptist Bunyan. Nevertheless Walther call's Bunyan's work an "interesting and edifying book", high praise from Walther for a Baptist writer. (The full text of Walther's essay will be in an upcoming future blog series.)

Bente-Pieper: The great stir in America (Part 3 of 3)

      This concludes a short series (Table of Contents in Part 1) presenting an updated book review of Franz Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, vol. 2 by Friedrich Bente in 1917. — Bente's text is in black font, my comments are indented in red font. From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 63 (1917), pp. 468-469 [EN]: 

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[Concluded from Part 2]

Missouri has not yet found sufficient reason to abandon its position. And anyone who picks up this volume can see for themselves that there is still no reason to do so today. It leads right into the middle of the battles that Missouri has had to fight for more than seventy-five years. [before 1842!] For it is ultimately his doctrine of grace with which Missouri caused the great stir in America. 

The “GREAT STIR IN AMERICA”... by what?  Franz Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics!  How the opponents hated Pieper’s pure teaching!  They sneered and laughed at him!  (They still do.  Bonhoeffer, in 1931, drove right past Concordia Seminary in St. Louis… [Strange Glory, p. 129])

The Missourian struggle over the doctrine of Church and Ministry is ultimately based on nothing other than the doctrine of justification. 

Those who contend that the differences between the LC-MS and the Wisconsin Synod are chiefly “Church and Ministry” would do well to ponder this statement.  When there is truly a difference, it means that there is a deeper problem with the Doctrine of Justification… something the Wisconsin Synod has denied in the past.

Romanism in the doctrine of Church and Ministry consistently, every time, amounts to a falsification of the Lutheran doctrine of “faith alone”. We are happy to admit it: Walther and Missouri are essentially only the “repristination” of Luther and his doctrine of grace.

The opponents within the LC-MS against its teaching of the past knew this and so they thought to put on a mask of being especially Lutheran by putting out portions of the American Edition of Luther’s Works.  Pelikan and Piepkorn joined with the erring Theodore Tappert to produce his Book of Concord and also to collaborate on the American Edition of Luther's Works.  The situation is the same today as the LC-MS’s Robert Kolb joined with the ELCA’s Timothy Wengert for their unionistic Book of Concord.  Yes indeed, they call themselves “confessional”, Luther scholars!  But it is all a mask, for it was C. F. W. Walther who spearheaded the true Confessionalism and the greatest Back To Luther movement since the Reformation Century!

And no attentive Lutheran will put down this volume of Pieper's Dogmatics without the impression that Missouri's battle for Lutheran truth was a great, glorious, holy, victorious war! 

Truly a Battle Royal!  Lehre und Wehre, or “Doctrine and Defense”, is filled with faith-strengthening essays and reports on this battle.

And the clarity, certainty, firmness and determination with which Dr. Pieper moves in the presentation of the doctrine of Scripture as well as in the refutation of the antitheses, creates the confidence that here speaks a master in Israel, a proven leader, whom no one can follow in his discussions without at the same time arriving at his own certainty. 

… “Here speaks a Master in Israel [Franz Pieper]”!

– Friedrich Bente – a true Church Historian!

Over the decades, many of the strange prejudices against Walther and his theology have fallen away. And anyone who wants to lose the last remnants of his mistrust of Missouri and convince himself that in Walther and the theologians and congregations that have gathered around him, that Luther's Lutheranism has indeed experienced an American resurrection, should read this second volume of Dr. Pieper's Dogmatics. F. B. [Friedrich Bente]

“Luther’s Lutheranism – An American resurrection.”  –  Bente states it beautifully!  He pronounces Pieper’s Dogmatics to be not only the heart of Walther’s teaching and that of the Missouri Synod, but also the heart of Martin Luther's teaching.  Even more, Bente implies that Luther’s teaching had been largely covered up for some time and had experienced a resurrection.  Where?  In America.

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In the above, Bente prophetically stated the following 

"Missouri has not yet found sufficient reason to abandon its position."

It struck me that he stated it this way, "not yet", acknowledging that this could happen going forward from 1917. And indeed there was even some rumblings in the early years of the 20th century by some pastors anxious to make peace with the other, more liberal, synods in America, particularly in the Eastern and English Districts. I believe Pieper saw what was brewing in the last years of his life and defended vigorously against the false doctrines in the opposing parties. But alas, the Synod spiraled downward after Pieper and Bente went to their eternal rest, and especially after Theodore Engelder passed in 1949. May today's LC–MS turn back, back to Luther and the old Missouri Synod! Amen!

Bente: all "threads of theology" tied "into a knot" (Pieper's Dogmatics, Part 2 of 3)

      This continues a short series (Table of Contents in Part 1) presenting an updated book review of Franz Pieper's Christian Dogmatics II by Friedrich Bente in 1917. — Again, Bente's text is in black font, my comments are indented in red font. From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 63 (1917), pp. 468-469 [EN]:

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[Continued from Part 1]

And it is in the midst of this doctrine of grace that Dr. Pieper's Dogmatics takes its firm, all-encompassing, [page 469] all-dominating position. 

All-encompassing?  Yes.  All-dominating position?  Check.  How my copy of this volume 2 is marked up in so many places!  How many noon-hour breaks I spent quietly reading, and praising God for, this volume.

It is therefore entirely fitting and in keeping with the logic of the matter that the second volume of this Dogmatics, in which the Christian doctrine of grace is the real issue, was published first. In the doctrines dealt with in this volume, all the threads of theology come together and tie themselves into a knot in the doctrine of justification and conversion. 

Pieper polished the diamond that Walther uncovered again, and likewise … he could see that the “luminous rays” of the Gospel had not been so well gathered “into one beam of brilliant light” since the Reformation century than by ... C.F.W. Walther. Walther gathered the "luminous rays", Pieper brought all "threads of theology" and tied them "into a knot in…justification and conversion".

Here a theologian reveals at every turn whether he 

• has really mastered the whole situation, whether he 

• has really grasped not just all sorts of Christian doctrines and truths, but 

• [has grasped] the Christian doctrine, the truth of the Gospel, to which everything else relates as antecedens [preceding] and consequens [consequent], and 

• is able to present and defend it correctly from all sides. 

Bente’s summary of the benefits of Pieper’s theology is the best… better than Ludwig Fuerbriner’s, better than the Foreword written by Missouri’s Synodical Centennial Committee, even better than J.T. Mueller’s and Walter Albrecht’s Forewords to Volumes II and III, although Albrecht includes some high praise.  Bente elevates all their praise to the highest level and announces to the whole Twentieth Century: “Here is your Christian textbook for the century!”

In this second volume, which deals with the doctrine of grace, everyone can convince himself that he has before him a Dogmatics which really stands at the center of Scripture. Scripture, the doctrine of Scripture from its own innermost center — that is precisely what Pieper's Dogmatics offers. — 

By contrast, today’s LC-MS calls the Scriptures a “plastic text”.  How Dr. Jeffrey Kloha hates Pieper because Pieper places the Christian on a Solid Rock (1 Cor. 10:4), not a “plastic text”. He has now resurfaced, after previously leaving Concordia Seminary, as the Dean of the "Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership", an organization at the center of much controversy in the LC–MS. [See also Prof. Joel Biermann]  There is a seething hatred of Pieper by modern theologians because he sharply defends against their anti-Scripture teaching.

Another peculiarity of the [old German] Missouri Synod is that it has remained faithful to the theological position it adopted from the beginning. Walther's position is still the position of the [old German] Missouri Synod today. What Walther, and Dr. Pieper himself, taught consistently for almost forty years as a professor at the seminary in St. Louis, is adequately expressed in this Dogmatics. 

Bente is speaking for the year 1917 when he says his Missouri Synod “has remained faithful”.  And now it most certainly has not been true for many years  Ah, but surprisingly, by God’s grace, Pieper’s Dogmatics remains in print and readily available so that the true Missouri Synod can still be seen… no, not today’s LC–MS, rather the Missouri Synod from above.  —  And Bente specifically states that what Dr. Pieper taught was the same as C. F. W. Walther.  Indeed we may say that Pieper’s Dogmatics is the one that Walther would have written  – we may even call it “Walther’s Dogmatics”!

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In the concluding Part 3…

Only a Lutheran, only Dogmatics: Bente praises Pieper's Dogmatics, vol. 2 (Part 1 of 3)

      This is a revised and updated version of an old blog post from 10 years ago in 2015. While reading this piece I remembered how glad I was to find such a wonderful judgment of Franz Pieper's Christian Dogmatics in the pages of Lehre und Wehre. In this case, it was a book review by Editor Prof. Friedrich Bente of Volume 2. I had translated Bente's review and inserted my extensive comments. In this updated version, I have added pictures, comments and more links.  — In the following presentation, Bente's text is in black font, my comments are indented in red font. From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 63 (1917), pp. 468-469 [EN]:

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Christian Dogmatics. By Dr. Franz Pieper. Second volume. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. 672 pages, bound in cloth with spine and cover titles. Price: $4.00.

This work, which thousands will welcome with pleasure, has already been sufficiently characterized in Lehre und Wehre. However, we do not want to deny ourselves a few remarks. 

“Thousands will welcome?” That was true over 100 years ago, but today? For those few who still value true Christian doctrine, this volume is available for viewing, free of charge by borrowing, on the Internet Archive. Still, this book is so important that a hardcopy is priceless.

It is true that not every Lutheran can write a dogmatic, but only a Lutheran can write a truly Christian dogmatic. Why? Because he alone stands at the center of Christianity, not only according to his heart faith, but also according to his knowledge. 

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics is not an entirely Christian dogmatics, no matter how many volumes he wrote, no matter how many accolades it receives.   According to the recent book Strange Glory, page 136: “Karl Barth … the Swiss theologian had moved from Münster ... to assume Bonn’s post in Reformed Theology, which was being funded by American Presbyterians eager to promote Calvinism in the land of Luther.” Karl Barth was a Reformed theologian.  So why is Barth not suitable for instruction in Christian dogmatics?  Read on...

Anyone who does not take his position at the center does not see everything, nor does he see and judge what he sees correctly. In theology, this position is that one really sits in the Scriptures, sees everything through the Scriptures, and judges according to the Scriptures. 

However, not everyone who operates with the words of Scripture and knows how to surround himself with a scholarly exegetical atmosphere is really seated in Scripture, but only those who have taken their standpoint in the actual heart of Scripture. This heart of Christianity, however, is nothing other than the scriptural doctrine of God's grace in Christ Jesus, according to which only faith justifies, regenerates and saves. 

Today there are many a theologians who know how to “surround themselves with a scholarly exegetical atmosphere”, e.g. Exegetics Professor James Voelz of Concordia Seminary.  Many of today’s theologians gain notoriety by having higher degrees from Cambridge, Oxford, University of Chicago, etc.  Concordia Publishing House can’t get enough of these Bible commentators and the positive reviews for their books by these “scholarly exegetes”.  Their editors love this scholarly atmosphere, the “scholarly exegetical atmosphere”. 

But yet they are either weak in or have lost the Doctrine of Grace.  Walter Albrecht, in his Foreword to Volume 3, page v, of Pieper’s Dogmatics, highlighted Pieper’s statement from Volume 1 (pg 101), that “Only dogmatics is edifying”.  That is, it is for doctrine that the Bible was given to man.  As Pieper says on page 101: “Exegetical theology deals exclusively with the words of Holy Scripture…. [It] loses its theological character if the exegete does not adhere throughout to the maxims “Scriptura Scripturam interpretatur” [Scripture interprets Scripture] and “Scriptura sua luce radiat.” [Scripture shines its own light]  —  This is how I was led back to my Christian faith, as Pieper (and Walther) held my nose to the bare Scripture of 2 Cor. 5:19 and said “See?”  Can you read?... God IS already reconciled to you?...  now you know what grace is.

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In the next Part 2…

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Part 1: This introduction

Part 2:  All "threads of theology" tied "into a knot"

Part 3: The great stir in America