GB3: Proper church separation; State Church: no better if 100x better; idolizing Luther?

      This continues from Part GB2 (Table of Contents in Part GB1) in a series presenting C. F. W. Walther's defense against a Saxon State Church theologian Georg Buchwald, who attacked both the Lutheran Free Church in Germany, and the Missouri Synod in America. — Here again, Buchwald misuses logic, but Walther turns it back on him.

      Buchwald, according to the German Wikipedia article, "wrote a widely read biography of Luther that was published several times." It seems the world is full of Luther biographies, but are they true to Luther? Buchwald gives us reason to be wary of his biography, particularly in its spiritual content. More will come out on this in an upcoming segment, Part GB9, in relation to another German scholar, Julius Köstlin. — The following translation is from Lehre und Wehre, vol. 32 (1886), pp. 100-101:

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Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.

[by C. F. W. Walther]

Dr. Buchwald thus continues on p. 4: 

"There is only one just reason conceivable for separation from the Church: only that the Church itself has ceased to be the body of our one Head Jesus Christ, and consequently can neither maintain its adherents as members of the Head nor raise up new members of the same." (Underlined by Buchwald himself.)

Does the Doctor mean to say that one can only rightly separate oneself from a church if it no longer has so much of the saving truth that one can come to faith in it, remain in faith and be saved, then no Reformed person may separate himself from the Reformed, no Methodist from the Methodist, no Baptist from the Baptist church, etc., yes, even no Roman from the Roman. For in each of these fellowships a person can come to faith and be saved.

A more unionistic, syncretistic principle has hardly ever been expressed. This principle, however, seems to have been devised merely for the purpose of preventing anyone from separating from the state church, for if the state churchmen were really serious about this principle, they would also have to regard it as unscrupulous if a member of the Lutheran Free Church, a Methodist, a Baptist, or even a Roman separated from his church and wanted to join the state church, unless they considered their state church alone to be the body of Christ and the mother of all believers. That Luther, by the way, did not pay homage to that grossly syncretistic principle will not be denied by the gentlemen of the state church, at least by Dr. Buchwald himself. For Luther writes, among other things, thus:

"We must confess that the enthusiasts have the Scriptures and God's Word in other articles, and whoever hears and believes them will be saved, even though they are unholy heretics [Ketzer] and blasphemers of Christ" (Letter on Anabaptism, 1528. Walch XVII, 2675 [StL 17, 2212; AE 40, p. 251]);

and yet, as is well known, a year later in Marburg Luther renounced church fellowship with the Zwinglians and separated himself from them.

Buchwald continues on p. 4: 

“How the great apostle Paul condemned the sectarianism that was already stirring in Corinth in his time is clearly written in 1 Cor. 1:10-13. The separation of the Free Church is a transgression of this commandment of the apostle, which, despite different, subjective versions of Christian doctrine, calls us to hold together as the members of Christ; it is also a great injustice against Dr. Luther, whom we truly know just as well and respect just as highly <page 101>, but do not idolize as they do.” — 

What an exegesis and what an application! Paul punishes the Corinthians for their divisions because of their attachment to persons and their gifts, and the Mr. Licentiate applies this to divisions because of doctrine, namely because of false doctrine! Or did Paul, Apollos and Cephas have different doctrines? Or does the Saxon Free Church differ from the Saxon State Church only in "different, subjective versions of Christian doctrine", while both are united in the doctrine itself? [No.]

Our pamphlet continues on p. 5: 

"(Separation) is also a great injustice against Dr. Luther, whom we truly know just as well and respect just as highly, but do not idolize, as those do." — 

Unfortunately, it did not please the author to reveal what the injustice is that the separation is supposed to commit against Luther. Since, as he says, he "truly knows Luther as well" as the men of the Free Church, he doubtless also knows the almost innumerable declarations contained in his writings, in which he denies fraternal fellowship to all those who contradict God's clear words in any article of faith. Therefore, far from the Free Church doing Luther an injustice by separating from the Saxon Church, it is only following in his footsteps. 

It is true that the Saxon State Church still officially professes the symbols of the Evangelical Lutheran Church by means of a formula set on screws, but what doctrines resound from its cathedrals and pulpits? what doctrines are expounded and defended in the writings of its ecclesiastical writers? and does it not have its [Emil] Sulze, [Rudolf Friedrich] Grau [DE Wikipedia], etc., who blaspheme Christ in the face of their church guardians in an uncompromising manner? If, therefore, the Saxon doctrinal formula were a hundred times better than it is, it would be, far from being a testimony to its Lutheran character, only a louder testimony to its apostasy. She did indeed reveal what she wanted to be, but at the same time that she was not. — 

By the way, if the Licentiate accuses us of idolizing Luther, that is simply not true. We do not believe in Luther, we do not believe a word he says in divine matters because he says it; but we believe him when and where he clearly and distinctly proves his doctrine from God's Word. Is this idolatry? When Licentiate Buchwald refers to the well-known passage in which Luther warns us to call ourselves after him, as his master, but also warns us, where his doctrine is concerned, to "throw Luther down", and finally writes: "So you must say: 'Luther is a knave or a saint, I have no interest in that; but his doctrine is not his, but Christ's'" — neither the first nor the second warning applies to the Lutheran Free Church, but the latter applies to the state church .

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      Walther firmly teaches that the Lutheran Church is NOT the alone saving church body, and neither was the German State Church. But following Buchwald's logic, the State Church is. If one has ever felt confused by confusing assertions of academic teachers regarding Christian doctrine and practice, then Walther is your friend. This essay will be one that I go back to, to fully learn Walther's ability to unravel false assertions by opponents. — In the next Part GB4…

GB2: The “theology prevailing at German universities”; Church separation

      This continues from Part GB1 (Table of Contents in Part GB1) in a series presenting C. F. W. Walther's defense against a Saxon State Church theologian Georg Buchwald, who attacked both the Lutheran Free Church in Germany, and the Missouri Synod in America. — Walther now presents excerpts from Buchwald's pamphlet and addresses them individually. The issues of logic are prominent in this segment, and I had to work to follow the logical arguments. But Walther never misuses logic to twist his opponents words, and in fact turns Buchwald's logic against him. The spiritual issue? Doctrinal unity. 

      The green shaded areas I have marked are my attempts to highlight the misuse of logic employed Buchwald, which Walther unravels. — The following translation is from Lehre und Wehre, vol. 32 (1886), pp. 98-100:

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Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.

[by C. F. W. Walther]

Already on the first page Licentiate Buchwald writes: 

"When Pastor Willkomm says in the passage just quoted that his desire for 'clarity in doctrine remained unsatisfied in the study of the theology prevailing at German universities', that is, when he speaks of the theology prevailing 1) at German universities, he seems to assume that the One thing 1) is theology, that there is therefore unity 2) of doctrine among us as well." 

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1) Underlined by Buchwald himself.

2) Underlined by us.

A strange conclusion! Can a theology not prevail whose characteristic consists precisely in the fact that it regards doctrinal unity as a pure phantom? And this is indeed the case with regard to the theology now "ruling" in Germany. Or can the Licentiate name only two leading contemporary theologians who are united in doctrine? Or — assuming (but not admitting) that there really is unity in "doctrine" — is abstract unity already something praiseworthy? Even unity in false doctrine?

Buchwald continues on p. 4: 

"We would also like to ask about the logic of what was said on p. 9: 'Leaving, separating oneself, is something originally German'. Is this supposed to justify religious separatism? Do we have to pay homage to a mistake because our ancestors had it? Should we not rather rejoice that in our time the spirit of separation has finally been defeated in the political sphere? Shall it now do its mischief in the <page 99> religious sphere?" 

To this we have two things to say. Willkomm only wants to prove that "leaving, separating oneself is something originally German". We too would therefore like to ask "according to the logic" of the objection: "Is this supposed to justify religious separatism?" Is the Doctor philosophiae [i.e. Ph.D] not thereby committing an obvious mutatio elenchi [misrepresented original argument]? But this should least happen to a man who has just attacked the logic of his opponent. Incidentally, Mr. Willkomm immediately adds: "Or would the Reformation have come about without separation?" Hereby Willkomm shows, after having declared separation, which the 41 clergymen had declared to be something American and un-German, to be, on the contrary, something originally German, which separation alone he considers not only to be something originally German, but also at the same time something originally Christian. In this respect, too, Buchwald's objection is an inexcusable mutatio elenchi. Indeed, when Buchwald begins the following new section with the words: "On the same page Pastor Willkomm asks: 'Or would the Reformation have come about without separation?'" it does indeed seem as if the reader should not realize that these words of Willkomm are added directly to the previous one in order to prove what kind of separation he alone approves of among the original German ones. But, God be commended, the announcer of the heart.

To Willkomm's words just quoted: "Or would the Reformation have come about without separation?" Buchwald makes the following remark in the following section: "He thus places the separation of the Free Church from the state church on the same level as Luther's Reformation." — Where is the logic here again? Or are you putting things that you compare with each other or classify as one and the same category on the same level?!

The Licentiate adds: 

“What drove Luther out of the Roman Church was something completely different from what gave rise to the Free Church. Or does the latter have the nerve 1) to assert that the situation in our Evangelical Church at the present time is such as Luther complains of the Catholic Church of his time 2) and by which he justifies his departure from the Roman Church (Erl. Ausg. Zweite Aufl. Bd. 10, 57.): 'Greater error, sin and lies have not reigned on earth, from the beginning, than in these hundred years. There the Gospel is publicly condemned at Costnitz. — It is not possible that greater lies, abominable error, terrible blindness, obstinate blasphemy should ever increase than has hitherto reigned in Christendom." 

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1) Underlined by us.

2) The latter two sentences underlined by Buchwald himself.

 

We only remark here that we regard this whole apostrophe, which begins with the <page 100> indignant words: "Or has this (the Free Church) the nerve to assert" etc., as a rhetorical device employed only for the purpose of alarming the uninformed; for Buchwald knows as well as we do that it does not occur to us to equate the Saxon Church with the Pope’s Church of 1522.

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      Buchwald has been called out for his belligerent, deceptive manner of argumentation. Will he get better or worse as we go? Find out in the next Part GB3…

GB1: Georg Buchwald vs Free Church (and Missouri Synod)

     Georg Buchwald (1859-1947) is a well-known name among Luther scholars. I ran into his name on occasion while researching Luther's writings. The Christian Cyclopedia says of him, that he was "Active in Luther research; edited materials for Weimar and Erlangen editions. [and] Luther's works." "Red Brick Parsonage" blog reports that he was 

"one of the foremost scholars on Luther’s works. It was he who rediscovered Georg Rörer’s transcripts of Luther’s sermons in 1893 in Jena, after their location had been unknown for nearly 300 years. He was the chief editor for Luther’s sermons for the Weimar edition of Luther’s works."

"Red Brick" only has praise for Buchwald's scholarship, making no comment on what church body he was in nor his theology. Even the old 1927 Concordia Cyclopedia had only praise for him. In 1886 Buchwald, according to Wikipedia, was "5th deacon" of the "royal high school in Zwickau". He was evidently a "Licentiate" there.

      In an essay of 1886, we find that Walther also had praise for Buchwald, reporting that he "had brought to light several Luther manuscripts he had found in the Zwickau Council Library and had put them into print". In the final paragraph of his essay Walther explained that Buchwald was "able to read old manuscripts", and that he was a "learned" scholar, abilities for which Walther was "not inclined to diminish, together with the associated merits".

      But unlike virtually all of today's reports about Buchwald, C. F. W. Walther knew this scholar/theologian better, for Buchwald had come out with an 18-page pamphlet attacking the Lutheran Free Church in Germany, which also attacked Walther and the (Old) Missouri Synod. Buchwald was a theologian of the Saxon State Church. (This series is a good follow up to my recent series on Pastor Hochstetter's defense against a State Church pastor.)

      I debated whether readers might loose interest if this essay was presented in an extended series of posts rather than in a single post with a few comments and only a download link to the whole translated essay. But as I kept reviewing it, I realized that it offered a masterful rebuttal not only against poor theology, but also improper logic. As we discover, Buchwald was a "Doctor of Philosophy", or Ph.D., and was quite intelligent. So we will need one such as Walther to sift through exactly what Buchwald was asserting in order to fully understand the spiritual aspects of the issues. —

      I do not need to give more background of the circumstances since Walther explains it well in the opening paragraphs below. — The following translation is from Lehre und Wehre, vol. 32 (1886), pp. 97-104, 129-144 [EN]:

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Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.

[by C. F. W. Walther]

We have just received the following pamphlet:

State Church and Free Church [CHI]. Reply to Pastor O. Willkomm's "open letter to the 41 clergymen of the Zwickau Ephorate" by Lic. Dr. Georg Buchwald [DE Wikipedia; Red Brick Parsonage], deacon in Zwickau. Zwickau. Published by Gebr. Thost (R. Bräuninger). 1886 (18 pages in small folio).

 

This pamphlet has the following meaning. At the beginning of this year, a leaflet signed by 41 so-called clergymen of the Zwickau superintendency [ephorie] in Saxony appeared under the title "A word to our congregations", which contained a warning against the Methodist, Baptist and Irvingite sectarians who had broken into the state church congregations in that area. However, since the most important congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church, which had left the Saxon state church, was located in the immediate vicinity of Zwickau, in Nieder-Planitz, the warning of those 41 clergymen also included the separated Lutherans as equal culprits alongside the aforementioned sectarians. 1) 

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1) See: Der Lutheraner of February 15, p. 29.

The latter prompted Pastor O. [Otto] Willkomm in Nieder-Planitz to address an "open missive" to the signatories of the leaflet in the organ of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Saxony and to have it published in pamphlet form; and it is this "open missive" against which the above-mentioned pamphlet State Church and Free Church is directed. The author of the pamphlet himself says in it that the "open missive" initially seemed to him "not to need a reply", but that since the missive [of Willkomm] had sold out so quickly and was soon published in a second edition, "the necessity of a reply" had finally arisen. <page 98> 

When the above pamphlet, State Church and Free Church, came into our hands and we saw Licentiate Buchwald named as the author on the title page, we opened it in the hope that it would at least shed a completely different light than that of the utterly deplorable "Word to Our Congregations". Since the aforementioned author had brought to light several Luther manuscripts he had found in the Zwickau Council Library and had put them into print, we expected from him at least more Lutheran understanding and Lutheran judgment on the questions in question than had hitherto come to light in the publications of the State Church. But how bitterly we were disappointed when we read Buchwald's pamphlet! There is nothing in it to discover any assertion of Lutheran principles. Words from Luther's writings are quoted here and there, but mostly in an underlying sense. The most important, decisive reasons contained in Willkomm's "missive" are not dealt with, and what is considered in it is almost regularly not faithfully presented.

To substantiate these accusations, we are permitted to excerpt the following from the text.

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      While today's Luther scholars and theologians only see in Buchwald his great Luther scholarship, Walther became "bitterly disappointed" in him. He was "disappointed" because he always held out hope for Germany's theology, that it would return to its former theological glory. This essay was written near the last year of his life so we may take it as Walther's warning to the younger teachers and leaders in the Missouri Synod to not be deceived by much of the scholarship coming out of Germany. This essay is as astute as it is passionate, for Buchwald was a smart man and deceptively misused logic to attempt to persuade "the faithful" in his State Church.

      It is to be regretted that the pamphlets of Dr. Buchwald and Pastor Otto Willkomm are not so easily obtained. But that did not matter so much to me for I know exactly the points that Buchwald made by Walther's defense against them. We will see that, as Walther progresses through his article. The essay continues in the next Part GB2. 

- - - - - - - - -  Table of Contents  - - - - - - - - - -

GB1: This post, Introduction; Georg Buchwald vs Free Church (and Missouri Synod)

GB2: The “theology prevailing at German universities”; Church separation

GB3: Proper church separation; State Church: no better if 100x better; idolizing Luther?

GB4: Luther’s Bible; doctrinal discipline, unity of doctrine; Röbbelen & canonicity of Revelation

GB5: The Confessions vs. the Bible? Divinely assured by God's Word alone? Baier's Compendium

GB6: Doctrinal unity within Free Church? Syncretism “kills love of truth”; pleases Holy Spirit or not?

GB7: Serious about Confessions; forced removal?; Backward theology? Yes!

GB8: Communion discipline; Ph.D’s “irrelevant conclusion”; certainty of absolution

GB9: Confession not forced, but needed; Luther & Köstlin vs Buchwald, lazy pastors

GB10: Walther schools Buchwald on communion discipline; "broad-minded"?

GB11: Buchwald makes foolish opponents: "straw man" argument

GB12: Fusion of Church and State? Buchwald defends, Walther attacks; a “quick-witted” Ph.D.

GB13: Walther condemns State Church 10 ways: deprives of soul & salvation

GB14: Buchwald misuses Walther's lamentations; Free Church could be better?