CM7: Walther's 1848 Synod: no machine, but living organism; missing section restored

      This continues from Part CM6c (Table of Contents in Part CM1) in a series defending Walther against a false portrayal by LC-MS President Matthew Harrison on the doctrines of Church and Ministry. — Pres. Harrison's teaching, "synod is 'church'" in the same sense as the local congregation, is quite incredible when reading Walther. Even Harrison seems to admit this when he uses not a quote from Walther but the phrase "I do not believe…", that is, his private interpretation.  There is absolutely no hint of this teaching in Walther. 

      What does Walther's teaching sound like? For that we go backwards in time from the 1879 Iowa District essay to 31 years earlier, Walther's first address in 1848 to the Old Missouri Synod newly formed in 1847.  This has been translated and published in at least five places, three of which are publicly viewable free of charge. However, I have taken the time to not only translate it myself with the help of DeepL Translator, but added cross-reference markers to the other publications so that one can compare them as needed. I have also disovered a not insignificant section, from pages 35-36, that was missing in all but Pastor Joel Baseley's translation, and I have clearly marked it in light green shading. — Before I present my full translation, I would highlight a few passages:

35: "But if we take a look at the situation in which the church finds itself here [in America], …the congregations freely govern themselves"
35: "…congregations which use the freedom they have to reject our proposals… they certainly deprive themselves of a blessing"
36: "In this way (giving up their freedom), many congregations would take on the form of Lutheran congregations without possessing their essence, our synod would perhaps become a large, well-organized machine" [Missing in most publications]
36: "…blessed struggle for the true jewel of the Church, for the purity and unity of doctrine"
36: "…there is every reason to fear the pernicious consequences of a restriction of the freedom of the congregations"

Now I present my translation of the full 1848 Synod address with numerous hyperlinks to cross-reference with the other translations. This is only a few pages long and I encourage readers to take the time to read it through:

The above may be viewed directly >> here <<.

The following, extracted from the above, contains the 3 sentences where the LC-MS translations omitted a large portion:

In a republic, such as the United States of America is, where the sense of liberty and independence is so strongly nourished in men from their youth, it could not but happen, that a restriction of it, however well meant, beyond the bounds which God himself has given, [the following green shaded section missing in Koeneke-CHIQ-CTM-Moving Frontiers-Harrison-At Home…, but NOT Baseley] would excite in many a resistance even to such regulations as would have been accepted if they had been allowed freedom to accept or reject them. <page 36> But if all congregations were to submit to the orders of the Synod, even in things neither commanded nor forbidden by God [i.e. adiaphora], because they had once committed themselves to them, but perhaps many with inner reluctance and resentment — what would be gained? In this way, many congregations would take on the form of Lutheran congregations without possessing their essence; our synod would perhaps become a large, well-organized machine, but not a living organism; the more we succeeded in building the outer structure, the more the inner life would dwindle; we would cultivate rotten trees at the root, plants which the Father has not planted and which should therefore be exhausted; we would perhaps often think we had accomplished great things, while <CTM 436> our works would be empty shells before God's eyes, and our apparent growth would often be nothing but a congealing and dying away in great masses of lifeless forms. [Walther is clearly referring to the German State Church]

Walther clearly distinguishes the Synod from the churches, but Pres. Harrison teaches that the "synod is 'church'". Harrison cannot claim that his teaching is the same as Walther's, even if he does not believe it "is fundamentally at odds with Walther's views". — In the next Part CM8, we learn more of the theology of Theodore Kliefoth, which was much like that of Wilhelm Loehe.

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So that search engines may be enabled to search the full content of Walther's essay, it is presented below after the break in fine print to save space.

CM6c: Harrison's “tension”, Walther's “loving bond” (Iowa 1879)

      This continues from Part CM6b (Table of Contents in Part CM1) in a series defending Walther against a false portrayal by LC-MS President Matthew Harrison on the doctrines of Church and Ministry. — In support of the title of this blog post, I quote again from Walther's 1879 Iowa District essay, page 47, the famous paragraph that follows his quote from the Formula of Concord, X, 9, but this time my translation: 

O dear brothers of the laity, remember this passage! Our dear Church has given you a treasure from her best days. You must hold on to it; for what good are all rights if you do not know them or do not use them? — Where God's Word has neither commanded or nor forbidden something, the congregation [Gemeinde; Walther's double emphasis] has the decision, not a synod, not a pastor, not a presbytery, not a consistory. That is what our church confesses. It is a liberal [or free] church. It is not a clerical ruled [pfaffenherrschaftliche] community, but a community of members of Christ who are united by an evangelical, gentle, loving bond.

Just how important this passage was to Old Missouri can be demonstrated by Pres. Friedrich Pfotenhauer's verbatim citation of it in his essay "Walther as the Founder and Leader of Our Synod", in Der Lutheraner, vol. 67 (Oct. 1911), p. 341. Note well! Pfotenhauer does not call Walther a "co-founder" with Loehe as Harrison does, but "the Founder". — Where does New Missouri LC-MS Pres. Matthew Harrison teach like Walther above? He does not.

      I want to compare the final phrase of Walther, highlighted in green above, with the teaching of Pres. Matthew Harrison. Along with a mistranslation of the Formula of Concord by Harrison and the LC-MS (see Part CM6a and here), this paragraph shows another glaring difference:

Iowa District, 1879, p. 47; Der Lutheraner, vol. 67 (1911), p. 341	Church and Office, p. 76
“the congregation… is not a clerical ruled community, but… are united by an evangelical, gentle, loving bond.”	“Wilhelm Löhe promoted Luther's ‘from above’ teaching of the office.… Höfling…promoted the ‘from below’ teaching. Walther held both in all their challenging tension.”

Walther and Pfotenhauer teach that where the Word of God rules, the congregation and the pastor are not in opposition to each other in a “challenging tension” but are “united by an evangelical, gentle, loving bond”. How different is the doctrine of Harrison, Prof. Benjamin Mayes, and the LC–MS from that of Walther and Pfotenhauer! — One will also notice that Harrison apparently wants to assert that “Luther's so-called ‘from above’ teaching of the office” is different from Walther’s teaching of both "from above" and "from below".

      Another example exposing this one-sidedness of Pres. Harrison is Walther's statement made in a footnote to an essay evaluating the theology of Dr. Kraussold of Germany, a "Romanist Lutheran" (Lehre und Wehre, vol. 4 (1858), p. 354), my emphasis:

Unfortunately, it has come to the point that anyone who rejects the Romanist doctrine of the Office of Ministry [Harless, Preger, Walther, Pieper, J. T. Mueller, etc.] is now considered a follower of Höfling in this doctrine and is suspected of being such, whereas Höfling's doctrine of the office and that of the Romanist Lutherans are the two opposite extremes, between which the pure Lutheran doctrine, to which alone our Synod has professed and still professes, lies in the middle.

Harrison wants to place Walther in his own “Romanist Lutheran” “challenging tension” camp, while Walther sharply rejects such a position. So does Pfotenhauer.

      Walther's famous paragraph in the 1879 Iowa essay clearly demonstrates that he was not only a strong defender of the divine institution of the Ministry, but also the rights of the congregation, the laity. That is the Lutheran doctrine, "in the middle" Old Missouri's doctrine. Pres. Harrison is only promoting an "extreme" doctrine, "pfaffenherrschaftliche" rule, that comes from Romanist Lutherans, like LC-MS "co-founder" Wilhelm Loehe. Is it not fair to say that the LC-MS leaders and teachers do not want to be "stuck in the middle" with Walther? A supposed agreement between Walther's teaching and Harrison's is pure fiction. — In the next Part CM7…

CM6b: Harrison omits Walther's emphasis of congregation, his whole point (1879 Iowa)

      This continues from Part CM6a (Table of Contents in Part CM1) in a series defending Walther against a false portrayal by LC-MS President Matthew Harrison on the doctrines of Church and Ministry. — The following is a 3-part comparison of a famous paragraph that Walther wrote in the 1879 Iowa District essay and the two subsequent English translations published by Concordia Publishing House, the last of these being a reprint by LC–MS President Matthew Harrison. I have identified who was responsible for each publication: 

Iowa 1879, p. 47 ————————— Everette Meier translation (1992 CPH, Essays for the Church, Vol. II, p. 26; CPH download) —————————— Harrison, At Home in the House of My Fathers, CPH 2009, p. 262

Let's have a larger look again at Harrison's 2009 reprint of Walther's paragraph:

Do you see it?  There is no emphasis of the highlighted words as they are in both Walther's original German, and in the original 1992 CPH English translation of Everette Meier. It took me several looks at it to realize what Harrison had done. Although Harrison kept the English translation of Walther's word "Gemeinde" or "congregation", he completely downplays Walther's whole point by ignoring Walther's emphasis, that the congregation, not the synod or pastor must decide matters of adiaphora, including matters of the liturgy and ceremonies! That is how Walther taught the Formula of Concord on this point, FC SD X, 9. 

      Yet Harrison even went further in his book Church and Office, p. xii, charging Prof. J. T. Mueller, in his English translation of Church and Ministry, with "hyper-congregationalizing":

“[J. T.] Mueller hyper-congregationalizes Walther's original.“

Harrison is here guilty of falsely charging Prof. J. T. Mueller with falsifying Walther, when Mueller was only emphasizing exactly what Walther emphasized from the Formula of Concord in his 1879 Iowa essay.

    Even more! In 2015, CPH published another reprint of Evertte Meier's 1992 translation of Walther's 1879 Iowa essay in its collection Walther's Works: Church Fellowship. Did they omit Walther's strong emphasis in this famous paragraph, as Pres. Harrison did in 2009? Here is how it was printed, on page 273:

 

Look closely. Although this 2015 reprint put the emphasis of italics back into Everette Meier's 1992 translation, it omitted the bolding of the word "congregation".  Walther emphatically stressed the rights of the local congregation in this paragraph.  Look again at the original German publication above. — I am not done yet with Walther's famous paragraph in the 1879 Iowa essay. 

    Could there be even more to this story? I discovered a surprising detail in the 2015 CPH reprint of Meier's 1992 translation. Editor Prof. Gerhard Bode, in the CPH book Walther's Works: Church Fellowship, p. 272, did the unthinkable…, he (and CPH Publisher Paul T. McCain?) used the 1921 Triglotta for quotations from the Lutheran Confessions!… instead of A. C. Piepkorn's English translation in Tappert's Book of Concord, p. 612! And in just the Formula of Concord's article X, 9 is a key difference that separates Pres. Harrison from C.F.W. Walther:

FC SD X, 9:

← Triglotta, Walther / Prof. Gerhard Bode:

“Therefore we believe, teach, and confess that the congregation of God of every place and every time…”

Piepkorn / Tappert, Pres. M. Harrison: →

“We further believe, teach, and confess that the community of God in every place and at every time…” [2024-06-21: corrected link]

What may seem like an insignificant difference is actually a major issue for Pres. Matthew Harrison, an issue he wrote about in an essay that he included with a 2015 CPH book, Chemnitz's Works, volume 9.  Harrison makes a point of chastising "every well-meaning Missourian" for believing exactly what Walther taught in his famous 1879 paragraph above. Harrison even admits to being in agreement with Walkout sympathizer A. C. Piepkorn against the Triglotta. I am including an excerpt from this short essay after the break below to document this.

      In the next Part CM6c…, we meet a synod president unlike Pres. Harrison, one who described Walther's famous paragraph as "ravishing eloquence".

["Briefly Noted: FC SD X 9", an excerpt from Harrison's essay, follows the break:]

CM6a: Walther's 1879 Iowa: “Congregation is supreme court in its sphere”

[2024-09-15: updated link to Harrison's book.]

      This continues from Part CM5 (Table of Contents in Part CM1) in a series defending Walther against a false portrayal by LC-MS President Matthew Harrison on the doctrines of Church and Ministry. — This is the first of a 3-part sub-series focusing on Walther's 1879 Iowa District essay. To further see the comparison between Pres. Harrison and C. F. W. Walther, I would cite excerpts from Harrison's own reprint of this essay, which is perhaps the key to fully realizing the clear difference between these two. The essay has been titled "Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod", At Home in the House of My Fathers, p. 261-262:

"The pastor is a minister, a servant [Knecht] of the congregation [not the synod] “for Jesus’ sake.” …… When the Word of God has neither commanded nor prohibited something, then the congregation must decide—no synod, no pastor, no presbytery, no consistory." … "We’ve been made suspect and have been slandered for saying: “In its sphere the congregation is the supreme court.” People told us, 'That [power] really belongs to the Holy Christian Church, namely the entire Church throughout the world in its totality.' But it is a lie that it must be understood that way; for Matthew 18:17 says “Tell it to the church,” and the whole context of the passage shows that absolutely nothing else can be meant but the local congregation [Ortsgemeinde]. For if “the Church in the whole world,” “the Church in its totality” were meant, when and where could it meet [and] how could a person “tell it to the Church,” as Christ commands? “The Church of the whole world” has never and nowhere been gathered at one place. In that case, Christ would have commanded something impossible—indeed, nonsensical. No, Christ obviously means the congregation to which those who sinned have come and where those are who have condemned the sinners."

After copying this quote into this blog post, I discovered a glaring omission by Harrison. That will be exposed in the next Part CM6b. 

      Because Walther's Thesis II(a) is so important for defending against "Romanist Lutherans", I am publishing my translation of it apart from the CPH translation that Harrison used (At Home, pp. 259-275). In the original German it is on pp. 44-61. 

      Before I do that, I would first highlight a particularly glaring difference, on page 47, between C. F. W. Walther and Pres. Matthew Harrison, also the LC–MS. Below is an excerpt from my translation of Walther, with my notes interspered in red:

<page 47>

In the Formula of Concord, this position is expressly granted to every local congregation [Ortsgemeinde], namely the "congregation [Gemeinde; Harrison uses Tappert's, Kolb-Wengert's, and McCain's (2006 p. 598) “community” in opposition to Walther’s “Ortsgemeinde” (and the Triglotta), “local congregation” translation. This is confusing Walther’s point that is clearly for the LOCAL congregation! Harrison says that J.T. Mueller "hyper-congregationalizes Walther's original", but what about Harrison? Does he not "hyper-clericalize" Walther's original? Walther clearly is saying that the Müller, p. 698 (and BSLK, 1930 p. 1056) archaic “Gemeine'' is to be orthographically updated to “Gemeinde”.] of God of every place and time", when it states: 

"Accordingly, we believe, teach and confess that the congregation [Gemeinde; Walther translated FC SD X, 9 as Gemeinde, “congregation”, NOT Gemeine, “community”] of God of every place and time has the opportunity according to good judgment, authority and power to change, diminish and increase these (indifferent things *) without frivolity and offense in an orderly and proper manner, as is at all times considered most useful, beneficial and best for good order, Christian discipline, evangelical prosperity and for the edification of the church." (FC SD X, 9. Art. X, p. 698 f. [Triglotta p. 1055])

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*) Indifferent things (adiaphora) are those which are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's Word.

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Walther's next paragraph, a famous paragraph that followed the above, will come in Part CM6c. — Now we present the translation of Theses II(a) in full below:

The full text may be viewed directly >> here <<.

The full text of the entire 1879 Iowa District essay >> here <<.

Readers should acquaint themselves with this Thesis IIa to gain a picture of Walther's teaching against Romanism, either by the above or in the reprinted English translation in Pres. Harrison's At Home in the House of my Fathers book, pp. 259–275. [2024-09-15: updated link] But Harrison either made a mistake or he knowingly failed to properly reprint the English translation of Walther's essay. In the next post, we present the exact printing of Walther's famous paragraph above in comparison with the two CPH printings of Everette Meier's English translation, so that readers may see what they are missing in Harrison's 2009 book. What did Walther strongly emphasize in his essay? Find out in the next Part CM6b.

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(For those that would be interested in my "Notable Quotes", they may view them after the break below. Also, so that search engines may be enabled to search the full content of Walther's Theses II, it will be presented below after the break in smaller print to save space.)

Brunn's Memoirs, in English; Lochner on Loehe's downfall (Part 2 of 2)

     This concludes from Part 1 in a short series presenting biographies and the theology of Pastor Friedrich Brunn of Germany. — Because the life of Friedrich Brunn was of such great interest after reading the summaries of the 2 grandsons, I decided to prepare the German text of his autobiography, Mitteilungen aus meinem Leben (Memoirs of My Life), for machine translation into English, and then polish it for better quality. I spent close to a week doing this work. I wanted to know more about several points: 

1. Brunn's relationship and his judgments of the other German pastor/theologian who originally had close ties to the old Missouri Synod, Wilhelm Loehe. How did he deal with the Romanizing weaknesses of the later Loehe? Did he just ignore Loehe's false teachings, or did he defend against it? Would he agree with the LC–MS labeling of Loehe as the "co-founder" of the LC-MS? The grandsons' biographies did not go into detail on the problems that developed in Wilhelm Loehe's theology and practice. — 
2. Did Brunn go into detail regarding the difference between the Reformed and Lutheran doctrines?
3. Did Brunn gain his orthodoxy from Walther and the Missourians, or did he get his spiritual footing independently, before he met the Missourians? 

The grandsons's biographies were of course limited, to be reader friendly, for those wanting a good overview. They had not have the space to cover the above issues in great detail, but these matters are covered in Brunn's autobiography. Before I present my full translation, I have extracted the following

Notable excerpts:

p. 53: "also a false superimposition of the doctrine of the holy sacraments, according to which the sacraments have an effect even without personal believing acceptance of sacramental grace… these false Romanizing concepts…"

58: "Harless's advice to convert to the Lutheran Church"

74: "our state government…now had a free hand to resume the earlier war of extermination against us" 

83: "March Revolution of 1848"

106: "On October 13 [1848], we celebrated one of our most beautiful festivals in Steeden. Pastor Loehe from Bavaria had promised to visit us, and a number of Prussian ministers came with him; … the first conference of Lutheran theologians gathered in the otherwise so lonely Steeden parsonage"

119: "But Loehe's whole school of thought …had always been less focused on clear and firm foundations in pure Lutheran doctrine, but rather on church ideals in which liturgy, discipline and the constitution of the church were of paramount importance to him"

122: "in America had it already flared up between the Missouri and Buffalo Synods, and the Missourians had already sent two delegates over to Germany in 1851 to come to an understanding with Pastor Loehe, who at that time was particularly supportive of the American Lutheran Church. Unfortunately, this had the consequence that from then on Loehe and the Missourians became completely estranged and became more and more entrenched in his peculiar ecclesiastical direction."

123: "When Professor Dr. Walther visited me in Steeden in the summer of 1860, I was already in full agreement and communion of spirit with him before any personal or written contact had taken place between him and me. It was only as a result of this unity that he found in me that he suggested to me the idea of founding the Steeden Institute." [Brunn did not learn these things from Walther, he learned these doctrines from the Bible, and the Lutheran Confessions.]

125: "it was especially the doctrines of church and ministry, as well as the power of the keys, around which the theological struggle of that time revolved and about which I already then came to full clarity, in contrast to the Romanizing errors of our time."

129: "It was also of great and decisive importance for my entire theological development, as I had it in those 1850s, that the doctrine of justification was at the center of all my knowledge from the very beginning."

133: "Professor Crämer asked me to take Loehe's place in helping them to recruit students in Germany for their seminary." [Crämer had previously consulted with Loehe.]

134:: "the little paper I [Brunn] wrote at that time on the sacred ministry of preaching… [Loehe] 'regretted that Pastor Brunn was building his faith on Lutheran doctrines of men; in this way Lutheranism would come to nothing.'… reveals how far one [Loehe] was not only from truly Lutheran doctrine, but also from a faithful Lutheran confessional ecclesiastical position in general."

154: "for a long time we in Nassau also shared the various prejudices against the Missouri Synod "

155: "It was only when Professor Walther visited Germany and Steeden in 1860 that the matter came to a decision.… my entire harmony with the Missouri Synod in faith and doctrine"

168-9: "the existence of a special missionary institution for the Missouri Synod in Germany, …contributed not a little to making the name of the Missouri Synod more and more known in Germany."

194: "the Chief Consistorial President von Harless [in Bavaria] attempted to gradually restore the ordinances of the old Lutheran Church in liturgy, confession and so on." [This was also Loehe's strength, so why do the supporters of Loehe, such as Pres. Harrison and Lieberg, not also praise Harless, but instead criticize him?]

198-9: "is well known, there had been a time when Loehe had begun to speak out strongly against the corruption of the State Church and mixed communion, but after that Loehe had stopped this whole struggle and began to instruct those associated with him… to partake of Holy Communion themselves"

204: "Towards the end of 1875 I received a letter from some East Indian missionaries who were in the service of the Leipzig Lutheran Mission: Schäffer, Zorn, Willkomm, Zucker and Gruber.… [they] had come to the realization of pure and clear Lutheran doctrine"

228: "we were not Professor Walther's disciples, but that we had already had our doctrine of the election of grace before there was any talk of a dispute about it." [Again, Brunn did not learn this doctrine from the Missourians, he learned it from the Bible, and the Lutheran Confessions, just as Walther did.]

246: "Pastor Loehe in Bavaria, Professor Vilmar in Hesse… have remained in the entanglements and corruptions of the national church"

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      In today's LC–MS there is much praise for Old Missouri Pastor Friedrich Lochner († 1902), especially because of his expertise with all things ceremonial and liturgical. The organization "Gottesdienst" and Pres. Matthew Harrison have appreciated that side of Lochner.  But what did the aging Lochner say about the two 19th century pastors in Germany most responsible for sending students to the Missouri Synod seminaries? We find the answer to that in an essay he wrote in 1892, Der Lutheraner, vol. 48 (1892), p. 4 [EN]:

“It is well known that after the unfortunate but necessary termination of our relationship with Pastor Loehe, the faithful Pastor Brunn in Steeden, Nassau, has rendered great service to our practical institution and thus to the local orthodox church for a long number of years through the training and sending of pupils.”

In his final years, Lochner praised "faithful Pastor Brunn" over Pastor Loehe. Would he agree with Harrison's labeling of Loehe as a "co-founder" of the Missouri Synod along with Walther? (I don't think so.)

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Now I present the full English translation, with added hyperlinks:

The above file may be viewed and downloaded >> here <<, a version w/o highlighting HERE; PDF version on the Internet Archive HERE.

      I learned so much about the German Church from this book that I did not fully understand before. Any Christian wanting to learn of the developments of the German Church of the 19th century, and the formation of the Lutheran Free Churches, would also benefit. But along with the history, Brunn wants us to understand Christian doctrine, and he takes considerable time giving his readers doctrinal instruction. 

Soli Deo Gloria – SDG!

 

“If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death”. John 8:51

Friedrich Brunn (1819-1895)