Who are the Pfaffen?
[by C. F. W. Walther; Part 8]
It is something Pfäffish [or clericalism] when the preacher always sees to it that his person is honored; when he does not come among his congregation as a brother among brothers, but as a person of special holiness and mysterious power and dignity among sinners [Gottesdienst]; when he does not receive his congregation members in a friendly manner, but mostly in a gloomy and sullen manner; when he immediately flares up as often as he is contradicted; when he demands obedience even in matters that are not decided in God's Word [e.g. liturgy, Gottesdienst], but are ordered on the basis of Christian prudence and experience; when he does not show mercy, patience and long-suffering toward the ignorant and fallen, and does not want to bear the wicked; when, as soon as he has admonished someone, he immediately expects and demands obedience, and as often as this is lacking, he grumbles and scolds; in short, when he thinks that modesty and humility toward the members of the congregation is something degrading and shameful for him and not a virtue that should adorn him in front of everyone. Luther writes:
“There are many anxious and hot-tempered preachers, who burn and are hot-tempered and want to get through with their heads; they do not know that it is another thing to plant and water, and another thing to prosper, 1 Cor. 3:6-7. As soon as they have said it, they want it to be done; they are not so much concerned about wanting to be heard because they speak God's Word as that they are speakers of the word; they want the instrument [i.e. themselves] to be praised more than the one whose Word they are to preach purely, without all their pleading. Of the same are these also a part, who with choice and well-considered words pretend to themselves, confront them with now this, now that, to sting and bite, and soon to convert; since it is then by the wondrous counsel of God that they accomplish and create nothing less than the very thing which they have thought. For man by nature feels that the Word against him and upon him is prepared with guile and smeared with human dung.” (On Psalm 8:3; IV:763 f.[? StL 4, 624-625?].)
It is remarkable what Luther writes to the Coburg pastor Balthasar Thuringia shortly before his death:
“Help out these vices (among the preachers) where you can, and remind both of them that they should present what serves for edification gently [page 52-1] and mildly, namely the doctrine of repentance, faith and good works; that they administer the office of the Lord without vice (reviling) and their own pleading and affect, without anger or vindictiveness. It is a wretched thing that almost all of our people avenge their own grudges and things like this in the church. We reproach the adversaries (the papist priests [Priester]) that they serve the belly, but ours are hard and hang on to anger. I ask you, therefore, for God's sake, to make every effort that the Gospel be taught humbly.” (XXI, 1348 [not in StL ed.?]).
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