LCMS-Harrison vs. Walther on "Church and Ministry" (Excursus)

      This post is an excursus to the previous post "Hist11: Chapter 7" of Hochstetter's History.  The depth that the LCMS has fallen to Romanizing becomes even more apparent from this History and has caused me to produce a separate blog post instead of an add-on to the previous post. This matter is not a minor doctrinal issue for Lutherans, but about "far-reaching doctrinal differences".

Reversing Walther's teaching
by Matthew Harrison

      Hochstetter's chapter 7 hits home against President Matthew Harrison and his LC-MS today. While Harrison praises Walther in his editorial comments in his re-translation (and mis-translation) of Walther's Kirche und Amt, (Church & Office, CPH 2012), he reinterprets the Lutheran Confessions and misunderstands Christ's words in Matthew 18:17-20.

Synecdoche: figure of speech
      Harrison makes maximum use of the term "Church" as a synecdoche, a figure of speech, in order to confuse the term's various meanings, thereby making even Holy Scripture uncertain.  It is a clever way of achieving his aims, making it seem like he is following rather than overturning Walther's teaching. This is indeed poor praise of Walther, for Walther clearly teaches what Harrison says he did not.  And Hochstetter is another witness against Harrison, along with J.T. Mueller whose better translation, Church and Ministry, in most cases is the correct meaning.  I may quibble with some of Mueller's paraphrasing, but not his general understanding of Walther. Unfortunately for Harrison, Hochstetter confirms Walther's true teaching, and Hochstetter's work was personally approved by Walther, and so Harrison cannot easily separate Walther from his later true followers, those who properly understood the rights of congregations or the local church.  Too bad for Harrison, we meet a true "Missourian" in Hochstetter, a label that Harrison explicitly derides in his later books, his books that came after his At Home in the House of my Fathers.

      The latest textbook of doctrine to come out of the LCMS, Samuel Nafzger's Confessing the Gospel (CPH 2018) which was personally approved by Harrison, even states (p. 1013): 

“Walther’s understanding of the doctrine of the office of the public ministry may be summarized in the following points: … (7) God brings men into the pastoral office through the call of the congregation, to which the power of the keys is given.”

But Harrison attempts, with his editorializing, to claim that Walther taught that the term "church", the entity empowered to call a pastor, does not mean just the local congregation.  He says (p. 212):

“I do not believe the Missouri Synod's decision to 'call' clergy to its district or national work–a practice that was ratified by convention in the early 1960s–is fundamentally at odds with Walther's views.”

How ironic it is that a textbook of doctrine with Harrison's support, which can lay little claim to orthodoxy, would affirm Walther's teaching on this very point that Harrison explicitly denies.  President Harrison essentially openly identifies with those who staged the 1974 Walkout from Concordia Seminary! And doubly ironic is the fact that Nafzger's textbook quotes J.T. Mueller's translation, not Harrison's translation, in the subsections dealing with "The Church" and "The Ministry"!  How embarrassing for Harrison that his great work is not even mentioned anywhere in Nafzger's textbooks. No, not once.

Gemeine and Gemeinde

      Harrison also plays fast and loose with the German terms Gemeine and Gemeinde and tries to use the change in spelling from the archaic Gemeine to the more recent spelling Gemeinde, claiming it can also be used as "Church" in the wider sense.  But not only does J.T. Mueller translate it properly to "congregation", not "church", but even the opponents of the Missouri Synod who translated Luther's writing on "The Keys" in the American Edition of Luther's Works, volume 40, p. 371) translated Luther's "Gemeine" as "congregation", not "church" (ref. WA 30II, 502, StL 19, 950, 94-95).  Imagine that!  Even Missouri's opponents, non-"Missourians", from the Romanizing old Augustana Synod (#18) knew better than the current President of the LC-MS, Matthew Harrison.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

      But enough!  Just read the Brief Statement of 1932 (English, German) and get a clear, concise declaration of the Lutheran Doctrine of the Church and the Ministry, and avoid reading Harrison's translation until one is firmly grounded in the truth of God's Word.

      I had not fully realized the depth to which Harrison has yielded to the Romanizing tendency, but now I see clearly how Harrison is not just against J.T. Mueller, but also against Franz Pieper, Christian Hochstetter, C.F.W. Walther, the Lutheran Confessions, Martin Luther, and… most importantly, against Holy Scripture – Matt. 18:17-20.  Harrison improperly uses J. T. Mueller as his scapegoat, while wanting to appear in support of Walther.  But the worst part is his attempt to use the Lutheran Confessions against themselves.  Hochstetter gives us the true picture of Walther's teaching – Walther said so.  

      Harrison's mis-translation of Walther reveals another reason why Dr. Fred Kramer's translation of Hochstetter has not been published by CPH. It is because Kramer's translation fully agrees with Walther's (and J.T. Mueller's, Pieper's, the Brief Statement's) meaning on the doctrines of Church and Ministry.  Harrison is now putting the last nail in the coffin of the Old German Missouri Synod within his LC-MS.

      No, no, President Harrison, as Walther says, your "zeal leads (you) beyond Lutheranism,", here and now.  It remains to be seen whether there are true Lutherans left in the congregations of the LC-MS, whether they can see through the subterfuge, and recognize the wolf when they see it.  Currently there is one book review on Amazon that is aware of  this ('Meh', by Micah D. Schmidt).

      Any of the laity not well versed in the doctrines of the Church and the Office of Ministry, as I have been in the past, would do well to get J.T. Mueller's translation first, Print-on-Demand or used [2024-02-26: but now available to borrow on Internet Archive], to get Walther's true meaning, the true Lutheran meaning.  Only after one is well grounded and ready to have their faith surreptitiously attacked should one study Harrison's subterfuge of a translation.  Then one can understand just how far today's LC-MS has gone backward, to being like the Walkout crowd of 1974.

===>> To President Harrison: did Prof. Otto F. Stahlke (1906-1992), whom you seemed to praise in your At Home book (p. 782: "he would read the Lutheran dogmaticians with me in Latin"), take your position on "Church and Ministry" or did he still confess with Walther (and Pieper) on these, i.e. for the God-given rights of the congregation, and against a call of pastors/church workers by a larger group than a congregation as divine right?  Would he have also negated Dr. Fred Kramer's translation on this? [Hint: read Stahlke's 1962 Springfielder essay on "Apostolic Succession".]  If not, then don't your criticisms of Mueller also apply to your mentor Prof. Otto Stahlke?

===>> To Concordia Publishing House: Why have you quit selling the hardback edition of J.T. Mueller's Church and Ministry book?  I see by the Wayback Machine you were selling it in 2016… could it be that you are rather promoting Harrison's translation instead?  Perhaps you could also explain why Mueller's translation had to wait 25 years to be published, in 1987, after it was completed in 1962?  … Really? a delay of 25 years? Who pushed for its publication… CHI Director August Suelflow? — In the next blog post, Part 12, Chapter 8, of Hochstetter's History.