Fendt's history of LC–MS: precursor to CHI book on Walkout issues (Part 1 of 3)

      This blog series was prompted when I discovered that the Internet Archive has recently (February 25, 2023) scanned and made available to borrow a book that provides more of the "inside story" of the early downfall of the LC–MS, from the early decades before much of the history presented in Concordia Historical Institute's (CHI, 2024) Rediscovering the Issues Surrounding the 1974 Concordia Seminary Walkout. The 1980 book is The Struggle for Lutheran Unity and Consolidation in the U.S.A. from the Late 1930's to the Early 1970's, by Edward C. Fendt, a professor in the old ALC which merged into today's ELCA. It was written in 1978, 4 years after the 1974 Walkout staged at Concordia Seminary, and was published by the Augsburg Publishing of the old ALC. I have blogged about this book in the past in 2011 (here and here; search "Fendt") but its importance needs to be once again pointed out. It is a good basis and companion for the CHI book released in 2024, 50 years after the 1974 Walkout, and edited by Dr. Ken Schurb. Fendt's book is a good source for those who want to know more of the historical events and people that led up to what Prof. Kurt Marquart referred to as an "Explosion".

      Fendt's book contains accounts of surprising "infighting" within the LC-MS teachers, and of the doctrinal issues, in the following:

Notable Quotes:

83: "If the members present had known how Dr. [Theo.] Graebner felt about the Doctrinal Affirmation they might have called for his resignation as one of the co-editors of the Lutheran Witness."

85: “A Statement” of the 44 signers reprinted

93: "The ALC commissioners declared that we hold to the same truth which they term Objective Justification even though we may prefer such terms as Atonement and Reconciliation." [ALC shows its weakness or even denial of Objective Justification.]

94: "Dr. Fendt: 'It's also a problem of language. The evangelical Pieper becomes cold and didactic in Mueller’s Dogmatics. The only objection the Columbus faculty had to the Doctrinal Affirmation was its poor, archaic English.'" [Fendt labels “evangelical Pieper”!  But he does not call Pieper’s Brief Statement “evangelical”!]

 95: "Matzner [ALC]: We object to 'objective justification’ as you [LC–MS] object to 'intuiti fidei'; to us they are on par." … "[J.H.C.] Fritz: Universal, or objective, justification is the basis for subjective justification." [Thank you Prof. Fritz!! Clear evidence that the ALC erred on the Lutheran Doctrine of Justification.]

 

191-2: Fendt, of the ALC, speaks highly of Prof. Martin Franzmann, but that Franzmann was an unhappy man in the LC–MS.

192-193: Fendt: “Dr. Franzmann was committed to look at confessional and synodical statements in the light of the Holy Scriptures, not to look at the Scriptures in the light of confessional or synodical statements.” [See this blog post, Franzmann's conditional confession.”]

 233-239: Prof. Julius Bodensieck, of the old ALC, wrote a venomness essay against inerrancy of Holy Scripture. Yet the LC–MS was in fellowship with the ALC for a time!

235: Bodensieck: "which of the text forms is supposed to be the 'inerrant' one? Is it the 'Received Text' from which Luther translated the New Testament into German, and from which the Authorized Version was made?  Or is it the Hebrew Old Testament in Kittel's edition or Nestle's Greek New Testament text? The usual escape from the dilemma is to retreat behind the original autographic copies of the biblical books and to assert their total inerrancy. But this escape is illusory" [Franz Pieper addressed all these concerns masterfully in his Christian Dogmatics, p. 232 ff.; CSL Prof. Joel Biermann speaks much like Bodensieck.]

236: Bodensieck: "The third term used in the description of the Word of God is 'inerrant'. I have alluded to it above. A few more words are necessary here.  I assume that this term has the purpose here of eliminating the possibility of assuming that any geographical, biological, astronomical, historical statement in the Bible may be in error." [I addressed the "astronomical" in my Copernicanism series.]

237: Bodensieck: "...earmarks of current Fundamentalism." [This was the charge of the liberals in the LC–MS]

237: Bodensieck: "It [inerrancy] is Docetic, in that it denies the reality of the fact that while the Bible is the Word of God it is in every moment also the word of man. [This is the teaching of today's LC–MS.] Such a 'theologia gloriae' endangers the doctrine of the Person of Christ, robs Christianity of its essential historicity, and reduces the Bible to the level of the Koran which is held by Islam to be, in the Fundamentalistic sense, a 'heavenly', suprarational, inerrant book. Luther's statements concerning the Scriptures, it should be remembered, were dynamic-Christological, completely oriented to the mystery of the Incarnation. Did not Christ come into the world in the form of a Servant? And is it not precisely this aspect which needs to be stressed: The Word of God became flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ, and, in the same manner, the Word of God can now, in the Bible, be read in the words and languages of man? [Bodensieck speaks for today’s LC-MS! SCR1886 acknowledges this assertion and completely refutes it!]

238: Bodensieck: "If we argue that the Bible is inspired because it claims inspiredness for itself [B. is confessing that he does not believe the Bible is inspired, as the Apostle Paul does, 2 Tim. 3:16], and that therefore its statements are correct and that therefore we may safely erect our theological systematic superstructure on that basis, we argue in a circle, and it may easily happen [not sure?] that the whole structure collapses because the foundation proved to be untenable, indefensible, and treacherous."

- - - - - - - - -  Cont'd in Part 2  - - - - - - - - -

      Prof. Bodiensieck, although a vehement opponent to the inerrancy of the Bible, was more honorable than those who tried to hide their opposition, like many (most?) in today's LC–MS. As mentioned previously, Herman Sasse also made the false charge of "docetic" against inerrancy. — In the next Part 2…

Table of Contents 

Part 1: Fendt's history of LC–MS: precursor to CHI book on Walkout issues

Part 2:  Behnken, Bohlmann, the Preus cousins

Part 3: Franzmann's & Graebner's halting speech, tears