Martin Luther on the Pope

      The world today is focused on the death of Pope Francis. American flags are generally flying at half staff around our area, though some neighbors have not lowered their flags. Who can escape this news and all those who mourn over this, including "name only" Lutherans, the ELCA? So far the LC–MS is keeping quiet on this news, at least officially. But while researching Martin Luther's writings on the Law, I ran across this quote in his commentary on Genesis 18:19: 

“Similarly, the world does not hate us for teaching the Gospel and the benefits of Christ in pure form. All accept this and approve of it, unless they are manifestly ungodly. But the mischief [caput mali] results from our attachment of a comparison [of our doctrine] with the doctrine of our opponents, from our statement that the Pope is the Antichrist [Pontificem esse Antichristum], and from our disapproval of the teachings and the wicked deeds of the adherents of the pope.” (Am. Ed. 3, p. 221; StL 1, 1186; WA 43, 33)

Because there are a lot of "adherents of the pope" in our world, true Lutherans who accept what the Lutheran Confessions teach, as Luther teaches above, will find themselves the object of much "mischief" or malice from this same world.

Children's hymn? “Restrain murd’rous Pope and Turk” - Walther on Luther's great hymn

      One of my more popular blog posts has been the one on Luther's “Most Controversial Hymn”, which highlighted that it was a hymn for children. But I was glad to recently find Walther's blurb on Luther's hymn in the 1879 Der Lutheraner, p. 167 (Nov. 1 issue). Precious column space was used by Walther to briefly give another of his sharp counsels for his church body. He wanted to highlight Luther's intentions and purpose for this hymn. Let us listen to both Luther and Walther. (Translation by BackToLuther. All emphasis is in the original, except highlighting which is mine):

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“Keep us, O Lord, by thy Word. 

And restrain the murd’rous Pope and Turk.”

When Luther had this song printed for the first time in 1542 on a special sheet, he gave it the following superscription:

“A Children’s Hymn to Sing Against the Two Archenemies of Christ and His Holy Church, the Pope and the Turks." 

As a subscription, however, the song bore the following address of Luther to the children:   

“Dear Christian children, sing and pray confidently against the two right and greatest arch-enemies of Christ and His members, that God the merciful Father may continue to give peace for the sake of Jesus Christ. Do your best in this, for, alas, there are few poor people who are earnestly concerned about this. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.” 

From this time on, this hymn has been prayed and sung almost daily by the children in the Lutheran city and village schools, mostly on their knees. This children's prayer has been wonderfully answered. The Turks, those bloodhounds who lusted after the blood of Christians and from whose attack Christianity was once not safe for an hour, prayed that children's hymn sick and dying, so that now Christianity, if it only continues to pray against the Turk, is safe from him. But as for the other arch-enemy of Christ and Christianity, the Pope, our “children's hymn” has also put a stop to him at least to such an extent that he can no longer, as he once did, murder Christians who do not want to worship him, as much as he would like to. Cf. Ps. 8:2. W. [Walther]

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      Note well: Even though Walther admits that while murders by the two arch-enemies has decreased, yet he does not call for a change in Luther's words to this hymn, but commends Luther's hymn even today for children, with the words “restrain the murd'rous Pope and Turk”. — Are their any Lutheran children in the world today who pray this prayer, or sing this hymn, as Luther wrote it and intended it, to restrain the Pope and Muslim (Turk)?  I don't think so.  I lay the fault for this tragedy largely at the feet of the LC-MS, proving once again that the “confessional” LC-MS… is not Confessional.

Comm17-IIIa: Church hinders? Papacy, Crusades, Protestant State Churches— Walther uncensored

      This continues from Part 16 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a series presenting a new translation of C.F.W. Walther's Communism and Socialism from 1878. — Walther does not hide the fact that atrocities have been committed in the name of the Church, he even highlights how bad these were!  The Communists cannot accuse Walther of hiding these.  But just when one wonders that Walther has turned into a Socialist, he sends all their accusations against Christianity to the ground.

      One will note the large amount of text in red highlighting, text missing from the 1947 translation. Much of what was omitted concerned the abominations of the Papacy, which made me suspicious that even among "conservatives" in the newly named "Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod", there was the the tendency to give up the Lutheran Confessions regarding the Pope as the very Anti-Christ.  And this was even 15 years before Vatican II, the current excuse by the LC-MS to retract this clear confessional teaching of the Book of Concord and its identification of the Pope as the Antichrist. How sad. The omission of this large section leaves me with a bad taste, with the impression that the 1947 publisher "The Lutheran Research Society" was leaning towards politicizing this topic.  But Walther did no such thing, he always wrote exclusively on spiritual matters.  — Now, for the first time, read Walther's uncensored writing on this in English. 

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Translation of Walther's 1878 Communismus und Socialismus by BackToLuther primarily using DeepL online translation service; highlighting and bolding are my emphases, red text within square brackets [ ] are my comments, underlining is Walther's emphasis. Red highlight indicates omitted in 1947 translation.

C.F.W. Walther's Communism and Socialism, (Part 17, p. 53-55)

Church a hindrance? (Lecture IV.)

“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life,” [John 6:68] so Thy disciples once replied when Thou asked them, “Will ye also go away?” And so all have had to cry out, who ever became Thy true disciples, and so we too must cry out today. For to whom in all the world should we go to seek the truth that we have found with Thee? To whom in the whole world should we go to seek the grace for our sinfulness that we have found with Thee? To whom in the whole world should we go to seek the blessed peace we have found with Thee? —

O then help us, that we may let no false wisdom, no false comfort, no false joy of this world move us to ever be unfaithful to Thee.

But also open the spiritual eyes of those who do not yet know the salvation that is to be found with Thee, to recognize that they find with Thee everything that the poor heart of man longs for, so that they also come to Thee and remain with Thee until death.

So let us once praise and glorify Thee for this before Thy throne from eternity to eternity. Amen.

——————

There is another point that we must take into account in our assessment of Socialism and Communism if we want to proceed in a justly, fair, sincere and honest way. This point is the charge that Socialism and Communism brings against the Christian religion and Church.

The first of these accusations is that the Christian religion and Church is an ally of capital or, what wants to say the same thing, of the rich, the noble and therefore the oppressors, the tyrants. What is, say the Communists, the history of the Church other than a story of injustices that shout to heaven, a story of the pillage of the poor, a story of bloody persecution of dissenters? [page 54]

And, my brothers, we cannot deny it: under the company, under the cloak of the Christian religion and Church, however, the most immoral abominations have been committed, the poor [1947-72] people have been enslaved, sucked out and plundered, and streams of innocent blood have been shed. [Communists may be surprised to hear Walther pronounce this! History Channel will tell us all about these!] They called themselves the Christian Church and pretended to use fire and sword where necessary to spread it. [Against Crusades, etc.] They called themselves the Christian Church and pretended to burn heretics in defense of it. [Inquisition, etc.] They called themselves the Christian Church and pretended that they had every right to demand from the laity their bodily and earthly goods for the spiritual and heavenly goods which the Church brought. [Pope’s Church, and those like it.] One called oneself the Christian Church and pretended, for the sake of the salvation of the world, to have to seek the riches of the world, wealth, honour, prestige and power.

That all these abominations were committed by the Roman popes, [omitted in 1947 edition!] who called themselves the visible heads of Christendom, in covenant with the princes, the respected, the mighty, kings and emperors, is well known, nobody can deny it. I only remind you of the cruel and bloody persecutions of the Albigensians, the Waldensians, later the Lutherans and Calvinists. When in the year 1209 the Pope had announced a crusade against the supposedly heretical Albigenses and now his so-called crusade army had finally taken the Albigensian city of Béziers in southern France by storm, and some honest Catholics expressed the concern that there were also good Catholics in this Albigensian city, the papal legate replied: “Kill them, kill them! the LORD knows his own,”, and so all were slaughtered, man and woman, parents and children, old men and young men.  

I also recall the famous Paris Blood Wedding in 1572, [St. Bartholomew's Day massacre] where 30,000 innocent reforming people were slaughtered in the course of a few days so that their blood ran through the streets, and when His Holiness in Rome, Pope Gregory XIII, heard this, he immediately arranged a great feast of joy, had cannons released from his so-called Castle of the Holy Angel, or rather devil, and issued a commemorative coin to commemorate this glorious event.

I also recall the horrible, truly diabolical ordeals of the so-called Roman Inquisition, the horrible Auto da fé, i.e. religious courts [Glaubensgerichte] or rather spectacles of heretic burning, in Spain. I recall the violent exactions of the so-called Peter's Pence [Peterspfennig de], with countless millions from all the countries of Christendom flowing into the unfillable gullet of Rome. I remind you of the shameful trade in indulgences in Luther's time. I recall the terrible Roman teaching that the surest way to ensure one's eternal salvation is to bequeath one's entire fortune, especially if one is rich, to the Church, that is, to the Pope, the Bishops, the priests and the monks. This is written in blood on the pages of history, and no one [page 55] can erase it. [Green highlight included in 1947 ed.] Hence then 200 years ago [now ~300 years ago] in a large assembly of Catholics and Protestants, Catholics themselves declared that Luther had indeed been a great, dreadful heretic, but if he had not come, then Pope, bishops, priests and monks would finally have seized all the power. They would have made slaves of all the laity and forced them to eat straw and hay.

Here, of course, it cannot be denied that even in the so-called Protestant state churches some theologians even joined with the rich, respected, noble people, namely with the princes, to enslave the poor people, to rob them of body and soul, and to render them without rights.

But, my brothers, what does this have to do with the Christian religion and church? The dark history of these abominations is not the history of the Christian Church, but rather the history of the Antichrist, [omitted in 1947] the history of the traitors and enemies of the Church in its own lap.

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      I call on all those websites that have re-published the 1947 English translation to now include the omitted portion seen in red above.  Even now, it is hard for me to believe just how much text was omitted, how presumptuous those publishers were in cutting out a major point that Walther makes.  It was the Roman popes and Romanists who have in part provided a model of violence to the world of agitators.

Memories 9: great knowledge; humorous; Navy league, warships; Vatican ‘For Rent’?; Pelikan, Lueking, Danker false charges

      This continues from Part 8 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a series by Prof. Ludwig Fürbringer of his personal memories of the departed Franz Pieper in the 1931 Der Lutheraner magazine. — In this segment, more than others, we learn a little more of the man – his great general knowledge of the world, his interest in parks and warships, etc. Although short, it reveals more of his "personal" side.

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(page 283, col. 1)

Memories of Dr. Franz Pieper.

by Ludwig Fürbringer – [3.] (Part 9 of 16)

But one should not come up with the idea as if Dr. Pieper would have been a man buried in his study, who otherwise would not have cared for the world and the church.  On the contrary, this versatile man

●  followed everything in the world and in the Church with interest,

●  applied everywhere the sound standard of Scripture and Confession,

●  knew about some things which one never would have expected him to speak of, and

●  understood how to speak of things so intelligently and interestingly,

that in this way he astonished and made a lasting impression upon distant, even very different, persons who once happened to meet with him.

Pieper and wife (?),
1926 new Seminary dedication video 0:13

He also often showed a humorous streak; but everything had a serious, biblical background. So it may come as a surprise to many that he was interested in warships and, at least in earlier years, knew pretty much about so many-inch guns. He probably even got the relevant publications from Washington and looked closely at the illustrations. There was another reason for that, of course; because, like anyone who works hard mentally, sometimes he feels the need to direct his mind to something completely different. For years he was part of the naval league of our country, without, of course, sharing their jingoism and militarism, because he was a peace-loving man. He was interested in the public parks in our city and in the zoological garden. And some walkers along the streets and street vendors could tell of his friendliness and assistance.

Looking back on the nearly thirty-eight years of working with him, I have so many memories that if I wanted to tell everything, I would have to unduly stretch these articles. But I still want to report some more about his life. L[udwig] F[ührbringer].

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      "Old Missouri" is characterized as uninformed on various matters regarding the world and the Church.  Prof. Jaroslav Pelikan charged the American Lutherans (i.e. the Missourians) in 1952 with ignoring German church events.  In a similar way, Dr. F. Dean Lueking in 1964, charged an Old Missouri missionary with lacking an "elementary knowledge of the non-Christian religious systems and culture around him" (while admitting he had a "Christocentric core" in his preaching), Mission in the Making, p. 217-218. Prof. William Danker at least admitted in the 1964 book Moving Frontiers (p. 302) that this missionary, Theodore Naether ("almost an atheist"?), "is honored to this day by Indian Christians" (Naether article: DL 1, 2). This blog has published only a small sampling showing Pieper's (and old Missouri's) "great knowledge", the tremendous number of reports on news from America and around the world – on WW I, secret societies, church conditions around the world, especially in Germany. etc. So when Pelikan made his report directly to the Germans of how American Lutherans (i.e. Missourians) were unmindful of the so-called "reawakening of confessional consciousness" in Germany, he was promoting fiction. — Pieper's interest in naval matters was corroborated by Prof. Th. Graebner in his biography of Pieper:

“To the end of his life he was proud of the navy button in his lapel which he carried as member of a national patriotic organization supporting the naval program of our country. At social gatherings he almost invariably discussed civic and national affairs, often with a good deal of humor and with an acute appraisal of men and issues.” (Dr. Francis Pieper - A Biographical Sketch, page 54)

      Fürbringer spoke of a "humorous streak" in Pieper.  I recall this vividly myself when I read from one of Pieper's lectures – published in English translation by O. Marc Tangner, Luther Academy / Logia, $10.98).  In the German edition p 14, Tangner p. 12-13, Pieper says:

“The doctrine of works is the position, the life, the driving force, the principle of the papacy. If the pope were ever to give up his doctrine of works, then his very essence would vanish. He could then tack a sign to the Vatican door with the words: 

‘For Rent’.”

We see in this an example of what Fürbringer meant when he said Pieper's "humorous streak" had "a serious, biblical background". —  In the next Part 10…

Fick 13: Boston; against Papacy; No God?; Catechism History

      This continues from Part 12 (Table of Contents in Part 1), publishing an English translation of C.F.W. Walther's biography of Pastor C.J. Hermann Fick. —
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      Now Fick is again called to a big city, this time Boston.  Walther makes a terse comment about this city and its “European affairs”.  With its Puritan - Episcopal - Methodist base, it surely was a struggle for the orthodox Lutheran, Pastor Fick.  Walther elsewhere made a comment against the waywardness of Eastern districts: “Why are many congregations in the eastern section of the United States no longer free?”. –  Also in this portion, Walther reviews several more masterpieces by Fick on the Papacy, atheism, and Luther's Small Catechism. —  We now join our Fick as he makes his last move, to the Eastern district, to Boston...

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This translation by BackToLuther (BTL), taken from Der Lutheraner, Vol. 42, Nos. 14 (July 15, 1886) to 18 (September 15, 1886). All underlining is emphasis from original. All highlighting by BTL. — This portion:– vol. 42, #18, p. 138.

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In Memory of Our Unforgettable Fick.

(by C.F.W. Walther; Part 13, cont'd from Part 12)

However, by God's gracious will, Collinsville should not be the last stop in the life and work of our Fick. In the year 1872 he received an urgent call to Boston in the state of Massachusetts. To be sure, at first the climate of this more northern state caused him to resist the acceptance of the call for the sake of the constitution of his body, which was inclined to catarrh; but the importance of the city, with its European character, overcame his misgivings, so that finally, trusting to the guidance of God, he confidently followed in the name of God. He was solemnly introduced to this new post on November 10, 1872. The task presented to him was not an easy one. The European affairs of Boston, which were mixed up with New England, and which, of course, in some respects also asserted themselves in his congregation, caused him no little difficulties and worries. It was especially the sad school conditions there that weighed on his mind, as he complained to us on the occasion of the meeting of the Synodical Conference in Cleveland, Ohio., in August of 1884. Nevertheless, as far as we are aware, his official activity in Boston was a richly blessed one, and in spite of all the seriousness with which [page 138, col. 2] affected Fick there, the relationship between him and his congregation was a relationship of deepest love and full trust.

In spite of all the official work imposed on him by his congregation of about 600 souls, he still found time to serve the church in general with his pen. Already in 1873 came the excellent writing: “Secret of Wickedness in the Roman Papacy” [WorldCat; German text], in which he sets forth, after an important introduction in a first part “Secret of Wickedness” from the doctrines and in a second part in the works of the Papacy, namely in his terrible abominations. Both parts together comprise 38 and 250 pages in small octavo. The motto of this work is the words of Luther: “All other heretics are heretics only in certain parts; but this man (the Pope) is the only and true antichrist who is against the whole Christ.” (Luther's Works [W1], Vol. IX, 1014) [StL vol. 9, 1475 §13; AE LW 30, p. 287 - “Lectures on 1 John”, chpt 4:3 – see this blog.] The book is based on the most reliable sources and appended with a precise indication of these sources. The same has become widely used, and the second edition of the same has just been published.

We are now living in a time when:

●  in countless writings and daily newspapers, the word, “There is no God!” is treated as a truth no longer to be proved, but as a long-established truth;

●  in almost all the workplaces, retail shops, art galleries, public squares, and even many university lecture halls, does the word: “There is no god!” resound;

●  more and more people are making connections every day who have chosen the word, "There is no God!" for their slogan and for their shiboleth;

●  all men, wherever they go, wherever they stand, breathe in the fumes of the air made heavy, so to speak, with the denial of God:

but there are also many souls who, without being descended to cattle like most atheists, and without being filled with Satanic hostility to God, are sick of inhaling the hellish poison of atheism.

For the sake of such unfortunate souls, in the year 1876, our Fick issued a writing entitled, There Is A God. The Responsibility to Testify. [Google Books, WorldCat]  In this splendid 240-page work, the author has laid aside the weapon of ridicule, and in alternating form, now in narratives, now in stories, now in shorter or longer essays, are so clearly revealed the existence of a God in such a convincing manner and the counter-proofs against it in their wretchedness, that whoever does not want to deny his own reason, after reading this precious book and being healed of his unbelief, must exclaim: “Yes, yes, there is a God!”

In 1882, Fick followed this larger work with a small work: “The Gentile Christmas. A Tale of Life in the Far West. Publishing House of Neitz and Jung in St. Louis, Mo.” [German title; no WorldCat! see 1882 Der Lutheraner (w/ review by W)., and Ev. Schulblatt;] The tendency of this lovely booklet is to show by an example that man can not convert himself, but that God for Christ's sake is willing and strong to save man from the deepest depth of his misery of sin, to bring to faith and to save forever.

The last major fruit of his tireless literary industriousness is Fick’s work published in 1881 under the title: Stories from the Church and the World about Dr. M. Luther's Small Catechism. For Church, [page 138, col. 3] School and Home Collected. [German title; Archive copy] This is first a collection of the Holy Scriptures, then each of the six major parts, and finally, for each of these, stories concerning them. There are 614 of these stories on 361 pages in Kleinoctav close printing. As much as there are similar collections, this one is not only not surpassed by any other in our low judgment, but also not equaled by anyone else. Not only is the selection of the immense material taken on the basis of clear, pure Lutheran knowledge, but also everything is described in the chaste and sober language of Lutheran simplicity. —

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Lutheran Scholarship
      Walther stresses that Fick's book on the abominations of the Papacy uses “the most reliable sources” and is “appended with a precise indication of these sources”.  I was amazed too at Fick's scholarly work on the Lutheran Martyrs. Dr. Robert Kolb is noted as one of today's great scholars on Lutheranism and the Reformation.  But C.J. Hermann Fick was also a great scholar on these matters.  Walther testifies elsewhere that Fick writes as one of the greatest writers “in the spirit of Luther”, something I find sorely lacking in Kolb.  Kolb largely ignores (or refutes) the true Lutheran scholarship of the old (German) Missouri Synod. — No, today's LC-MS does not want the world to know just how much their “fathers” in the faith attacked the Papacy.

“Lutheran Catechesis”
      There is a movement by some in the LC-MS to use “catechesis” as the way to turn it back from its admitted heterodoxy.  There would hardly be any better book for this purpose than a translated English version of Fick's book of 614 stories on Luther's Small Catechism, a book Walther labeled as “not equaled by anyone else”.  I took the time to translate a portion of Walther's Foreword to this book:

“This collection is of particular value to Lutherans because it gives an example for every part of our small Lutheran catechism. Therefore for teachers who have the catechism in their school, and parents who have to promote it in their homes, the book cannot be recommended urgently enough. In the use of it, they will soon discover the good services they can get from these stories for a fair, vivid, practical, and urgent treatment of our “Children's Bible.” Imbued with a genuine Lutheran spirit and written in language understandable to children, these narratives can also be confidently given to the schoolchildren themselves and handed over to them for the purpose of reading through, that after completing each portion of the catechism they would recount the examples each story belongs to. But even adults will derive for themselves rich instruction and edification.”

In the following “Read more »” section, I have included the German text of the first several pages of Fick's book on the Small Catechism – The First and Second Commandments. I may add to this over time. — In the next concluding Part 14...