Denkstein, Memorial Stone: Old Missouri @ 75 years

      In 1922, 100 years ago, the Old Missouri Synod celebrated its 75th anniversary — 1847 to 1922.  Prof. George Mezger edited the commemorative book of essays which carried the German title of Denkstein, or Memorial Stone. — This past year the LC-MS celebrated its 175th anniversary, implying that they are the rightful heir to the Old Missouri Synod's heritage from its beginning. Because Mezger's book is such a milestone in church history, I determined that it deserved to be translated into English so that English speakers could get a better history than those presented to them by the historians of the later LC-MS.  

 

Why read Memorial Stone (Denkstein)? 

One will find many topics covered that shed light on the transitioning of the Synod during the Twentieth Century. For example:

— Those interested in the language question for the Synod and especially the importance of German, will find answers on pages 192 f., and 200 ff. 

— Those interested in the relationship of the Old Missouri Synod with Pastor Wilhelm Loehe will find helpful information in chapters 2 and 3.

— Those who have purchased the new CPH/CHI book The Emigration of the Saxon Lutherans in the Year 1838, an English translation of Pastor Koestering's German original, will find the references to it interesting.

— This book complements the readings of the English translations of Der Lutheraner and Pastor Hochstetter's History.

— The planned Lutheran classical school in Wyoming would do well to study the chapter on "Our congregational school system" and others.

— The unknown LC-MS blogger who wrote a plea for a new "Walther League" and its "Short History" would benefit from the chapter "Our Synod's work with confirmed youth" of 100 years ago. 

— For those that don't believe the reports of racism in Old Missouri, the chapter "Our Negro Mission" will benefit.

— For those interested in a hearty laugh (I laughed outloud), will want to read the last sentences of page 204 to the top of page 205.

      There are many valuable pictures and images presented in this book but I chose to use my own scans of the book to OCR it and my scans did not do justice to the photos of people.  So to compensate for this, I hyperlinked the page numbers of pages with photos to their matching page in Google Books so that one could click on the page number to quickly view a much better image.

      Now I present an English translation by DeepL with some corrections and several hyperlinks added.  The translation is not perfect, especially at page breaks and paragraph breaks, yet it is quite understandable:

A better way to view this is to download the PDF file from the Internet Archive site HERE.  Also the DOCX file for the English translation is available HERE. The formatted German text is available HERE.

      May the work of the Lord who so richly blessed the Old Missouri Synod be praised and honored by the reading of this book by a much wider audience.  Soli Deo Gloria!

Absolution & Justification: Old Missouri 1860 essay, in English (Pastors take note!)

[2024-06-10: updated links to Pieper's Dogmatics]

      Some of the more difficult doctrines of Christianity, are also its foundation.  As I surveyed the Convention Essays of the Old Missouri Synod (see here and here), the 1860 essay to the general Synod stood out as in great need of translation.  This essay was referenced extensively by Dr. Franz Pieper in his Christian Dogmatics book (Vol. III, pages 191, 208-211; Christliche Dogmatik III, 224-225, 246-248) in the section dealing with the Lutheran doctrine of Absolution.  As I proceeded to polish the translation, I could not avoid spending considerable time studying it, as it deals with the very heart of Christianity.   

      The essay's Theses were authored by Pastor Theo. J. Brohm, as reported by Pieper. This is probably why it has not been translated yet since it was not recognized as Walther's product. But since Walther was present, and there was considerable "free discussion" on this extremely important topic, I consider this essay to be as much a product of Walther as Brohm, probably more. In the year before, 1859, Walther had presented the first of his major essays on the Lutheran Doctrine Justification to the Western District and that naturally led into this "intimately connected" doctrine of Absolution. In my heart, there was no one but Walther who could have been so clear and forceful in teaching and defending this doctrine, even among his own pastors!  The reader will note how even these pastors struggled with it. Any dear reader who struggles with the teaching of "UOJ", or Universal, Objective Justification, of the Lutheran Church will find adequate defense of it in this essay. — The essay is not excessively long at 25 pages. It deserves careful study by all pastors, and all who covet their soul's salvation.  What follows is my partially polished, somewhat imperfect, translation with my personal highlighting for my own benefit in study it. Walther's 1859 essay has been identified as his "LDJ" essay. I would now give this essay the name of

the 1860 "LDA" essay:

A DOCX file of the above may be downloaded here.

The errors of Romanizing Lutherans, the Reformed (especially Methodists), and the Roman Catholic Church are exposed and defended against.  May the reader benefit, as I have, in growing in faith.  God Grant It!  Amen.

DL8: Der Lutheraner, Walther Years: redone (downloads)

      This continues from Part 7d (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting Der Lutheraner, 1888-1934, in English. — Due to the success I had with the multi-column formatting of the post-Walther volumes of Der Lutheraner, in getting them in the same multi-column format as the original printed page, I decided to apply the same process to the volumes for the Walther Years. This will update, but not necessarily replace, the single-column format previously provided.  Below is a comparison of the original German with the 2 English versions:

German original                                            *** English-multi-column ***                                 English, single column
(Der Lutheraner, volume 20 (1874), page 1)

The reader will notice that the (middle) formatted output is much closer to the German original, making it easier to compare and cross-reference to the source German page for any obvious OCR and translation errors. — The following table presents download links for the newer multi-column formatted translation of the Walther years, both as DOCX files and PDF files (in Internet Archive):

****  Der Lutheraner (Walther Years), in English, in original format  ****

Vol.	Year	DOCX (EN)	PDF (EN)		Vol.	Year	DOCX (EN)	PDF (EN)		Vol.	Year	DOCX (EN)	PDF (EN)
1	1844-1845	*	*		16	1859-1860	*	*		31	1875	*	*
2	1845-1846	*	*		17	1860-1861	*	*		32	1876	*	*
3	1846-1847	*	*		18	1861-1862	*	*		33	1877	*	*
4	1847-1848	*	*		19	1862-1863	*	*		34	1878	*	*
5	1848-1849	*	*		20	1863-1864	*	*		35	1879	*	*
6	1849-1850	*	*		21	1864-1865	*	*		36	1880	*	*
7	1850-1851	*	*		22	1865-1866	*	*		37	1881	*	*
8	1851-1852	*	*		23	1866-1867	*	*		38	1882	*	*
9	1852-1853	*	*		24	1867-1868	*	*		39	1883	*	*
10	1853-1854	*	*		25	1868-1869	*	*		40	1884	*	*
11	1854-1855	*	*		26	1869-1870	*	*		41	1885	*	*
12	1855-1856	*	*		27	1870-1871	*	*		42	1886	*	*
13	1856-1857	*	*		28	1871-1872	*	*		43	1887	*	*
14	1857-1858	*	*		29	1872-1873	*	*
15	1858-1859	*	*		30	1874	*	*

The benefit of this new version is not only the updated formatting, but also a slightly better translation due to minor improvements in proofing. Of course many errors still remain as discussed originally. — The PDF uploads to Internet Archive did not replace the unformatted (single column) version and so the the previous uploads were left intact because the Archive's OCR engine will not always work properly with a multi-column format, which renders the "FULL TEXT" mostly useless.

      This is the blog I am bookmarking for my future, and past, references to Der Lutheraner articles. — Now here is a table showing all the major download blogs for Der Lutheraner, Lehre und Wehre, and the St. Louis Edition of Luther's Works:

Publication / Format, file type	DOCX (EN) single column	DOCX (EN) multi-column	DOCX (DE) multi-column	PDF (EN)	PDF (DE)	Table of Contents (EN)	Table of Contents (DE)
Der Lutheraner, Walther Years	*	*	coming	*	*	*	*
Der Lutheraner, post-Walther Years	*	*	*	*	*
Lehre und Wehre, all years	*	—	*	*	*	*	*
St. Louis Edition (Luther's Works)	—	*	coming	*	*	coming	coming