EC1a: Christianity Today comments on Walther's writings

Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther

      This continues from Part EC1 (Table of Contents in Part EC1), a series restoring availability of English translations of several of Walther's convention essays that have apparently been abandoned by Concordia Publishing House. — Before I continue with this series, I would quote a book review from the well-known magazine Christianity Today published in 1983 regarding CPH's earlier series of Walther's writings that Director Suelflow had published. Suelflow had also quoted the following book review in his "Introduction" to the 1992 2-volume Essays, p. 12-13. The 1983 6-volume series, titled Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther, was the first major project to get more of Walther's many writings, beyond his books, into the English language. (These are now available on the Internet Archive. Editorials. Letters, Essays, On the Church, and Law & Gospel) Suelflow surely worked tirelessly on this effort and he is to be commended for doing what others in the Synod should have done 30-40 years earlier. The English speaking members were confined to a few books, and many were abbreviated.

      This book review was authored by a well-known Reformed theologian, Prof. Mark A. Noll, who we have met before. Noll had also penned an essay on B. B. Warfield in 1993, 9 years after this book review. Noll's remarks carry a Reformed perspective, making it a curious attempt to portray Reformed theologians on par with Walther. Yet his decidedly high praise for Walther is quite striking. One may read the whole book review here:

 

          "Lutheran Theology at Its Best: Walther's Works"

        (Book review by Mark A. Noll)

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (1811–1887) is one of the great figures of American church history. … a dynamic preacher, a faithful pastor, a learned professor, a diligent scholar, and a prolific author. His views on the church (which favored a Congregationalism adapted to the free air of America) and on salvation (which advocated such a high view of grace as to be called “crypto-Calvinistic” [!]) shaped the Missouri Synod during the years in which it emerged as a mighty American denomination. Yet no one beyond the Lutherans, and not even many of them, pay much attention to Walther today. One reason for this regrettable neglect is that all his writing was in German.

…No longer do evangelicals have any excuse to overlook this forceful teacher, whose work cries out for comparison with his better-known [Reformed] contemporaries. Walther’s sermons and letters reveal a Christian zeal as fervent as [Dwight L.] Moody’s. His editorials and convention essays rank him with Charles Hodge as a defender of the Trinitarian orthodoxy of the Reformation. His essays on the church speak as boldly for Lutheranism as C. I. Scofield did for dispensationalism [!]. And his masterpiece, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (here presented in a competent abridgment), is one of the few truly significant works of evangelical theology produced in the United States. This series makes available some works from a mighty man of God. Our only regret can be that it has taken so long for them to appear in English.

I wonder that Dr. Suelflow maintained some correspondence with Prof. Noll and provided him with copies of the translations to facilitate this book review. Whether Noll's book review generated a wider interest in "Walther's Works" is unknown. But it is interesting that a Reformed theologian should praise Walther far more than many LC–MS theologians today, especially Dr. Robert Kolb. — To add to the above, Dr. Suelflow made the following comment on p. 12 of his "Introduction": 

"Some 30 years ago [~1962] several of us felt that our beloved Synod would shortly be losing its Biblical-Confessional heritage if steps were not taken to trans­late Walther’s writings.

In the next Part EC2 we honor Dr. Suelflow's legacy "to trans­late Walther’s writings". The first installment in our long series deals with the an issue with the doctrine of Baptism.