This essay follows Walther's writing from 18 years earlier on a similar subject in Der Lutheraner in 1881 – see my blog series "Godless newspapers". — I have discovered additional information about German language newspapers in America from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) here (WayBack). Unfortunately, it takes no notice of religion among the native German people, and ignores any mention of church papers. Yet it is striking how prominent the German papers were in America up to World War I. There is a good overview of the history of the newspaper Germania here. (WayBack) — My paternal grandfather came from Germany in the late 1800s. Although I never knew him, I suspect he would have read the German papers in his day. — There is more than one striking feature in Pieper's remarkable article… "the power of Missouri"?
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Text extracted from Der Lutheraner, vol. 55 (October, 1899), p. 189; translation by BackToLuther; bold text is Pieper's emphasis, hyperlinks, highlighting, red text, text in square brackets [ ] are mine.
The Church and the Secular Press.
[by Franz Pieper]
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| Presidential election – 1900: William Jennings Bryan vs. McKinley |
The Lutheran of October 5 [1899] expresses in an extended editorial the assumption that the Missouri Synod is preparing to make politics, and possibly to speak the decisive word in the next presidential election.
How does this paper come out with these strange thoughts? It is reported from the New York Tribune that Dr. [Hermann] Dümling joined the editorial staff of Germania in order to keep “objectionable matter” out of this paper. But this purpose of Dr. Dümling's new position does not make sense to the Lutheran. Rather, the terrible thoughts just mentioned above come to him.
He thinks that if “one of the most capable pastors of the Missouri Synod” joins the editorial staff of Germania, it is probably for the purpose of possibly controlling the next presidential election through this “most widespread German newspaper”. The Lutheran says: “Many of us have come to know the power of Missouri in the German church movements of this country, and it is only natural that we do not like it at all when a Lutheran church body makes use of the secular press to make its influence felt in politics.”
We can calm the Lutheran down. First of all, the Missouri Synod as such has nothing to do with the fact that Dr. Dümling became editor of Germania. Then we also know and the Germania itself has announced that Dr. Dümling's appointment to the Germania has no “political” purpose at all, but merely to keep “objectionable matter” away from the Germania, not only from the “weekly” but also from the “daily” Germania. The policy of Germania is none of our business and has no interest in us. But because Germania is read in many thousands of our Christian homes, we have a great interest in keeping out of this newspaper all offensive reading material. And Dr. Dümling's entry into the editorial staff of Germania makes only this sense.
We can assure the Lutheran: No righteous Missourian pastor or professor, as long as he is able to work, gives up his ecclesiastical office to become politically active. If he makes the personal sacrifice of taking over the editorial work of a secular newspaper, this is done in the knowledge that in this way he is rendering a necessary service to his Church and to his Savior, namely for his part the service of keeping away the rubbish with which most secular newspapers pollute and poison Christian homes and hearts, year in, year out, and daily. There can be no doubt that the secularization and stagnation of modern Christianity is to a large extent attributable to the pernicious influence of the secular press, which so generally finds its way into the homes of Christians.
The worldly press, as it is ordinarily constituted, is in a constant struggle against the Christian church. The secular press wants to make the church secular and thus does not seek less after the life of the church than the press of the false churches which spread false doctrines. On Sundays the pastor preaches to his congregation: “Do not love the world, nor what is in the world.” But six or seven times a week a newspaper comes into the home and is read by young and old, in which the sinful nature of this world is partly hidden, partly openly glorified and praised. Now it is true: We cannot protect our Christians and also our youth from all temptations on the part of the world. They come into contact with the world and should learn to fight against the world. But the Lord Christ also taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” Christian parents do not do their duty unless they try to keep temptation away from their own family. It is also part of this that they strive to exclude soul-poisoning reading from their homes as far as possible.
The Last Day will one day reveal that, in the hearts of many people who, while they lived under the sound of the Word of God, were held back from their spiritual life, or again suffocated from it, through the influence of the worldly newspapers.
So it is truly worth the effort when Christians take it upon themselves to produce such secular newspapers which exclude all offensive reading material from their columns. If, for the purpose of this judgment, experienced people, be they pastors or professors, enter the editorial department of a secular newspaper, then one does not immediately sense politics behind it, as happened to the Lutheran, but one assumes—what is actually the case here—that it is a matter of the production of a secular newspaper that is not offensive to the Christian home.
The production of such newspapers was particularly important to the blessed Dr. Walther. We know that he traveled several times to persuade pastors to take over the editorial work of such secular newspapers. He repeatedly stated that he did not consider it a waste of energy to take the best pastors out of ministry in order to render this very important service to the Church. He said this to those who said that a pastor or a professor should not give himself up to be the editor of a secular newspaper.
Of course, one thing is necessary if the evil is not to become worse. The worldly newspapers, which are published by Christians, must now also really keep away all offensive things from their columns. If such newspapers are once again like the world, e.g. by displaying theaters, balls and other worldly entities, they are a double damage to the community. They seduce Christians into a cosmopolitan Christianity, into the deadly belief that Christ is in agreement with Belial. No Christian, let alone a Christian pastor or professor, can give himself up to this.
But such worldly newspapers, which really keep away everything offensive from their columns, are to be held up and valued as a precious gift of God. Such newspapers should not be obstructed, but encouraged and supported, even in cases where they hold political opinions which do not always coincide with ours. As far as politics are concerned, after all, every Christian has his own politics, that is, he does not let himself to be dictated by a party, by a newspaper, or by individual persons how he should vote, but he decides this himself before God to the best of his knowledge and conscience. F[ranz] P[ieper]
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In a more recent case of a related matter, we find that Concordia Seminary President Ludwig Fuerbringer's youngest son, Otto Fuerbringer, also joined a secular publication, Time magazine. Unfortunately, although once considered a "conservative", yet his magazine in 1966 would, on the question of “Is God Dead?”, state that believers “perhaps secretly fear that he is”. How different that is from the situation above and indicative that it was the "cosmopolitan" Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, not the true Missourians, that practically led the world into a "cosmopolitan Christianity", even the "radicalism of the 1960s".
I have news for the National Endowment for the Humanities – there were German Lutherans in America, even if they won't report about it. And among those Lutherans of America, some even wondered at the "power of Missouri [Synod] in the German church movements of this country". Better historians than those of the NEH (or Time magazine) do not ignore true religion in the history of a land.
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