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| Note to ChurchMouse - the hat is thought to represent Herrnhut, Stephan's Moravian Pietism. |
Chapter 4 – Stephan’s Halle Pietism Became Walther’s Universal Objective
Justification
The
official history of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is full of deliberate,
bald-faced lies about its origin. Central to the deception is the C. F. W.
Walther mythology, tales and claims that portray him as The American Luther,
when he was really the American Pope, a treacherous and criminal usurper, a
divisive figure who forced his imprint upon the Synodical Conference. The
often-told story is familiar to most conservative Lutherans. The Saxon
immigrants came over to America with Bishop Stephan leading them. They suddenly
discovered he was an adulterer and forced him out, with the brave and noble
Walther taking over and leading them until his death. Although Stephan is
always called a false teacher and Walther a champion of Lutheran orthodoxy,
with details too murky to decipher, the truth is unsettling.
Many
will portray the facts about Walther as a personal attack, but the truth needs
to come out, to set the so-called conservative Lutherans free from the yoke of
synod worship and Walther mythology. For too long the statements of Walther
have been used to define Scriptural interpretation. His writings have usurped
the Book of Concord in the same way that he usurped the position of the bishop he
swore to support, the documents he swore to follow in case of a dispute.
Walther also set up minions who would repeat his opinions post-mortem until
they were established as canon law, best exemplified in the position of UOJ in
the Synodical Conference today.[1]
Martin Stephan’s Saga,
Pietism and Syphilis
Martin
Stephan had a difficult early life, due to the effects of Roman Catholic
persecution of Protestants, which prepared him for future hardships and the
leadership of a Pietistic congregation.[2] He
was born in Moravia in 1777, and Moravia was a center of Pietism. His pastoral
sponsor was a Pietist, and so were his parents. He had to get by on his own for
years, but he enrolled at Halle University for two years, 1804-06 “Although the
University of Halle was no longer a center of pietism, it remained alive among
some students even though rationalism was dominant.”[3]
He finished at Leipzig in 1809, the disruption
in his schooling caused by the Napoleonic wars.
He served one congregation for a year and began
his ministry at St. John’s in Dresden in 1810.
St.
John’s was a Pietistic congregation with a special charter to continue cell
groups or conventicles when they had become suspect. The land for the church
came from Count Zinzendorf, one of the superstars of Lutheran Pietism.[4]
Stephan gloried in his cell groups, which are the essence of Pietism.[5]
Stephan was not a
rationalist. At the time, the two major parties were the rationalists and
Pietists. Since the Pietists emphasized Bible study and prayer, they attracted
those who found no solace in human reason. Thus anyone who mentioned faith was
accused of being a Pietist or a mystic.
Unfortunately, cell
group leaders often become bewitched by their power over others. Stephan was
unusually successful and well known. In court, testimony from his another woman
stated that “among all those who followed Stephan there was the idea that if
you entrusted your spirit to him
[Stephan] then you could also give him your body without committing a sin.”[6]
Although some of his troubles came from his position as a successful Pietist,
his other trials came from his immoral behavior. Accusations came at an early
date in his ministry.
The book about Martin
Stephan is honest about his problems with adultery, providing a considerable
amount of evidence, which was known long before Stephan led 700 people to
America “in pursuit of religious freedom.” He obviously wanted more than
religious freedom, because he took his mistress, Louise Guenther, and his
healthy son to America and left his wife at home – with all the sick children.
The society paid for Stephan’s family to travel together to America, but he
left them at home. Oddly, that son became the patriarch of some leading LCMS
pastors, including one Lutheran Hour speaker, a singular honor.
Even in this age of
hedonism, Stephan’s liberties were outrageous and well known. He was often
caught taking evening walks with various women. He was investigated by the
justice system numerous times. He installed a young woman in the parsonage
attic and told his long-suffering wife it was none of her business – he was the
master of the house.[7]
When he took the cure at the spa, his mistress Louise lived with him. When his
wife came to help, she was sent away and walked 20 miles home. The spa and the
walks were excused because of his health, but why did he suffer so many chronic
complaints?
Martin Stephan
suffered from syphilis. He gave it to his wife, and passed it on to some of his
children. Syphilis is the great pretender, mimicking one disorder and then
another. A sore may appear at the first outbreak, but it goes away, giving
false hopes of a cure. The carrier is still contagious even if his symptoms are
difficult to discern at any given moment. Anyone with questions about this
disorder should consult a physician and read the extensive information (with
photos) on the Net. Reading the Stephan book and the Web sources will lead
readers to an obvious conclusion.
Previous researchers
have come to the same conclusion, but no one wants to admit that Walther and
the other pioneers of Missouri Synod followed an obvious adulterer and covert
syphilitic to America. The evidence demands this conclusion:
- Primary
syphilis erupts with one or more lesions, painless and non-itchy, which go
away in about three months. Stephan could have contracted the disorder and
passed it to his wife while thinking (or hoping) it was nothing, once the
initial lesion went away.
- Secondary
syphilis shows itself with rashes, a major problem for Stephan. The rashes
made him go for long evening walks and visit the spa for its comforting
waters. Syphilitic rashes are very ugly indeed. The disease attacks various organs,
including the liver, brain, eyes and heart. The disease may become latent
without treatment, with the rashes going away. The latent period can last
many years. Modern medical sources do not agree about the syphilitic being
contagious during that time, tempting the person to be careless.
- Tertiary
syphilis means obvious neurological and cardiac problems, possible open
sores in various parts of the body and on the skin. These lesions are
hideous.
- Congenital
syphilis is passed from the pregnant mother to the unborn child. Stephan’s
wife was sickly and died before he did. Three of their daughters were deaf
and had to be institutionalized. Deafness is one symptom of congenital
syphilis. Newborns have many obvious symptoms, perhaps another reason for
Stephan to leave his innocent children behind – their deformed bodies were
a tragic testimony to his misdeeds.[8]
- Stephan
was quite ill before leaving for America. He was also ill during most of
the voyage.
- The
violence of the upheaval against Stephan is not explained by a sudden
revelation of adultery by two women, one of them his long-standing
mistress, Louise. Historians concede that the colonists did not need to
violate the confessional. Instead, it was likely the spread of syphilis in
the colony that enraged the men and justified everyone in their violence
and criminal actions. [9]
- Stephan’s
subsequent decline after sleeping outside one night is another indication
of his STD. Exposure would have lowered his fragile immune system and
brought on the symptoms with new force. Louise Guenther, moved to Illinois
to live with him and help him recover. He did not live much longer.
There must be evidence of the disease in the
official record.
Celestine
was the first of three daughters born deaf, and all three were eventually
placed in an institution. The first boy
named Martin died at the age of three weeks, the cause not known. A set of twin
girls died at the age of six months, in 1831, no cause given. Two daughters
grew up and were married, one of them dying young in childbirth.[10]
The profoundly deaf daughters probably had congenital syphilis. Perhaps the
three who died in infancy were also afflicted.
The father’s symptoms
are illuminating. Stephan “suffered particularly from eczema and some kind of
liver ailment, especially after 1832 when another set of twins died.”[11] Although
the author does not attribute the problems of the children and the “eczema,”
the cluster of symptoms certain points to syphilis. He used the nearby baths to
soothe his rashes. His mistress Louise Guenther came to spa to help him and
wrap his legs daily. His wife and daughters visited him but did not stay there.
Louise did. The same woman helped him when he was cast out of the Perry County
experiment and forced at gunpoint to cross to Illinois.
Stephan also took
evening walks, accompanied by various people. Court records called them the
equivalent of groupies. His behavior with various women on these evening walks
was the subject of investigation before the great migration to America. He was
doubly suspected of conventicle and immoral behavior. The earliest accusation
of adultery was 1814, although this seems to have been dismissed or finessed
away.[12]
Stephan’s evening
walks and stay-overs at inns were also the subject of official investigation
and ecclesiastical dismay in 1836.[13]
Stephan ignored the obvious problems raised by abnormal behavior and irregular
church practices. Like many successful pastors, he seemed immune to charges and
oblivious to the damage he was doing. His long-suffering wife Julia testified
in 1838 that Martin lived with Louis Guenther at the spa and the vineyard inn.
“At present he has disassociated himself from me completely, and although I
have offered him my hand in peace and consolation, my efforts in this regard
have been in vain.”[14]
Julia also testified that Martin installed a young woman named Sophie in the
attic, persisting when Julia threw her out and locked the attic. He broke the
lock and invited the girl back. The attorneys Marbach and Krause, and a few
friends, knew about Julia’s testimony, so the leaders willingly left for
America with an adulterous Pietist. Even if many did not know the full extent
of Stephan’s promiscuity, his adoption of Louise Guenther as a substitute wife
would have been clear to anyone. Julia Stephan’s testimony has been available
since 1937, according to Philip Stephan, so the continued myth-making of the
Missouri Synod is difficult to excuse.[15]
Stephan was still
under investigation and under house arrest before the Dresden group left for
America in early 1838.[16]
The charges were suddenly dismissed and he was free to go with his groupies.
Since the official charges and testimonies included the names of various women
and situations, no one could honestly claim that Stephan’s adultery was
suddenly and shockingly discovered after a particularly effect sermon. The
lawyers Marbach and Krause knew what the testimony was; Marbach and Vehse also
helped in kidnapping the niece and nephew of C. F. W. Walther. The Saxon
immigration was not so much in pursuit of religious freedom as it was a flight
from justice, with the two famous leaders – Stephan and Walther - both involved
in criminal activities.
 |
| CFW Walther |
C. F. W. Walther
the Pietist
C. F. W. Walther took
control from a power-mad, adulterous false teacher—who made himself a bishop—
and instituted an era of Lutheran orthodoxy combined with congregational
autonomy. That deception is the foundational Missouri Synod myth. The facts
contradict this fantasy, which continues to be told to the gullible when they
visit the Shrine of the Immaculate Synod in Perry County, Missouri.
Walther was the opposite of Martin
Stephan in many ways. Stephan struggled to survive, after losing his parents
and escaping from Roman Catholic persecution. He found work as a weaver,
enrolled as a student at Halle University, but found his education broken up by
war. Stephan’s early life is shrouded in mystery because of those hardships,
but it is known that he lacked the complete classical education of Walther, the
son of a pastor.
Both men identified with Pietism,
but this was the late stage of that movement, when rationalism had already
taken over Halle University. George Christian Knapp was considered a leftover
Pietist when he taught at Halle, yet he claimed the Trinity was a post-Biblical
development! Rationalism already had a grip on him. Tholuck, who came later, the
mentor of Adolph Hoenecke, confessed that he was a Universalist. Both professors illustrate that the remnant conservatives
of Halle were moving toward consistent Unitarian-Universalist rationalism. The
clergy at the time were dominated by rationalist leaders who considered faith
to be a sign of Pietism or mysticism, their two derogatory labels for
conservatives. Those who were more
conservative felt persecuted, which was one reason to migrate to America.
Walther earned his
degree at Leipzig University in 1833, which was thoroughly rationalistic. His
conservatism made it difficult to win approval from the examining board, but
his connections helped him overcome that obstacle. Walther moved among Pietists
because he was one. This account has Walther in a Pietistic cell group and
participating in a conventicle where the professor was appointed by the leading
Pietist of Europe, Spener’s heir, August Franke.
This handful of awakened students gathered on
specific dates of every week for common prayer and for the common reading of
Holy Scriptures to their edification and for a mutual exchange with respect to
the one thing needful. For a while (at the invitation of August Hermann
Francke), Professor Lindner also privately conducted a so-called Collegium
Philobiblicum, in which he applied the Scriptures in an edifying manner and
gave instruction in the derivation of servant themes from biblical texts. The
students, who had come to faith and had withdrawn completely from the world,
naturally had to submit to much ridicule and derision.[17]
Unfortunately,
his guru put him and others through grueling self-denial, leaving him almost
dead. He heard about Martin Stephan’s gentle, compassionate leadership and
contacted him. Stephan did not practice the same severe kind of Pietism, so his
initial letter of consolation brought great relief to the future leader of the
Missouri Synod. Walther admitted that Stephan saved his life. Thus Walther and
his older brother were drawn into the Stephan circle in Dresden. As a Pietist
beaten down by legalism, he wrote to Stephan for comfort:
Walther still had not found the spiritual
consolation he was looking for. Encouraged by his friends, he wrote to Martin
Stephan, a notable confessional Lutheran pastor (sic) in Dresden.
Stephan had preached the Gospel in an age of faithlessness and rationalism. His
sermons and devotional exercises brought countless people to his church.
Sometimes entire families walked many miles to attend his worship services.[18]
Walther
wrote to Stephan, whose reply was well remembered by Ferdinand: “When I read
his reply I felt as though I had been translated from hell to heaven. Tears of
distress and sorrow were transformed into tears of heavenly joy.”[19]
The content of that letter is remembered thus:
Stephan had shown him that the repentance
[Busse] taught by the Law, which he sought, had already long taken place; that he
was missing absolutely nothing other than the faith [in Christ]…so the peace of
God entered in. And so he received the living absolution as a sinner with a
broken heart.[20]
This
conversion experience, conveyed through Stephan and Halle University, became
the template for all of Walther’s work. The description is telling because
Suelflow interprets the atonement as justification:
From this point on, this doctrine of
forgiveness of sins through Christ’s death became the heart and soul of
everything Walther preached, taught, and wrote. One can determine whether a
doctrine (sic) is true or false only
by exploring how it harmonizes with the article of justification.[21]
Therefore,
the official biographies show that Walther began with Pietistic subjectivism,
his own experience, using the Scriptures and Confessions to buttress his absurd
conclusions. Martin Chemnitz was required to earn a doctorate in theology in
order to serve as a bishop, but Walther is considered The American Luther on
the basis of a bachelor’s degree from a rationalistic university and
purgatorial experience among the Pietists.
Cell groups are not merely central
to Pietism – they are Pietism. Spener borrowed the concept from a Reformed
leader, Labadie, who had been Roman Catholic. Those familiar with Roman Catholic
devotional circles can recognize the similarity in emotional intensity and
subjectivism: praying for hours, repeating the same mantras, and experiencing mystical
ecstasy.[22]
Walther moved from the harsher Pietism
to Stephan’s milder form. Stephan took great joy in his cell group ministry.
The great migration took cell groups to Perry County and St. Louis. Undoubtedly
Stephan’s grip on his subordinate ministers came from his spiritual dominance
through those cell groups. The senior cell group guru knows the secrets of his
followers and creates a powerful dependency in his subjects.[23]
Lesser cell group leaders also have an inordinate influence over the lives of
their charges. Some attribute Walther’s dictatorial attitude and need to
control to his German culture. His spiritual birth and re-birth in Pietism
probably contributed the greatest part of this dynamic. The dates and
activities of the Society show that Walther simply took over control of the
group by breaking all the rules he agreed to follow, doing so with deliberate
deceit and unprecedented guile.
Kidnapping Two Children from His Father’s Home
With the help of
attorneys Marbach and Vehse, and the cooperation of the future Walther mother-in-law,
Walther and his brother (another pastor in the group) kidnapped their niece and
nephew from their father’s parsonage – while their father was deathly ill.
…Stephan issued an order for J. F. Buenger to
remain in Germany with his mother. A daughter, Agnes, later Hermann Walther’s
wife, also stayed. However, the profound sympathy which both Stephan and O. H.
Walther professed for the unfortunate woman, six of whose children had already
left or were leaving for the United States, did not prompt them to set her free
by surrendering the Schubert children.[24]
The
official Missouri Synod excuse, repeated at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is: “The
niece and nephew wanted to go to America.” Both children later died in America,
perhaps without seeing their grandparents again. Even if this unverified
childish wish were true, that would not justify breaking the law, because the
grandparents were the legal, court-appointed guardians. Kinship kidnapping
makes a mockery of the law, which is why arrest warrants were issued for Walther.
His future mother-in-law Christiane Buenger was arrested and interrogated, because Walther
used her to hide the children. The attorneys Marbach and Vehse also helped in
hiding the children and getting them to America. Like Jonah, Walther jumped an
early ship and wasted money to get out of town fast.[25]
His appointed ship was lost with all lives aboard in an ocean storm, crossing
the Atlantic. That fact has fueled the ludicrous LCMS claim that God graciously
spared the life of Walther to fulfill His great plans for the Missouri Synod. Forster
claimed that the children were taken with knowledge and permission of the
grandparents, but that is unlikely, given the arrest warrants for Walther and
the imprisonment of Mrs. Buenger. Even if the grandparents had agreed, the
Walther brothers had no legal authority to transport minor children to a new
country. As Philip G. Stephan noted, the entire episode cast a shadow over the
pastors, the emigrants, and the shipping company.[26]
In fact, many of the most famous names involved
in the migration were lawless fugitives: Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, O.
H. Walther, Christiane Buenger, attorney Carl Vehse, and attorney Adolph Marbach
(the last two brothers-in-law). The state authorities and church faithful might
have been happy and relieved to see them leave the country. The Suelflow
biography spins the initial felonies with an alarming lack of candor:
And now came the immigration. What to do with
the Schubert orphans? The Walther brothers wanted to whisk them out of the
country, so they transported the minors illegally, took them to Bremen, and
entrusted them to the mother of John F. Buenger.[27]
O.
H. Walther married one Buenger daughter (Agnes), who was widowed young and
married Ludwig Fuerbringer’s father, Ottomar. Ferdinand married another Buenger
daughter, Emilie. Mrs. Christiane Buenger was arrested and jailed for the Walther
brothers. Ludwig Fuerbringer omitted the reason for her delay in coming to
America in his Eighty Eventful Years.[28]
Mrs. Buener contributed daughters for three future LCMS patriarchs, and also
helped in secretly planning the riot which threatened, robbed, and kidnapped
Stephan. Ferdinand also took over his brother’s congregation when O. H. died –
Trinity in St. Louis. The chalice used by Trinity—and never returned—was the
one stolen from Stephan.
The entire Saxon migration was well
thought out and thoroughly organized. Their plans and regulations were
established and printed. Other groups might have collapsed and scattered during
the twin crises of house arrest and kidnapping children. The only document left
to sign was created and supported on the trip across. Landing in the Bay of New
Orleans, the leaders gathered and voted for Martin Stephan as their bishop, which
was announced January 14, 1839. Although C. F. W. Walther had resigned his
position, he still signed as the “pastor of Braunsdorf.” His brother used a
different wording – former pastor. On May 31, 1939, Bishop Stephan
was:
- accused,
- threatened with bodily harm,
- robbed of his money, extensive
library, bedding, clothing, chalice, land,
- forced across the river at
gunpoint,
- and left at a forlorn cabin with
$100 and a few meager tools.
Walther
was the leader of the revolt and the myth-creator. When the turmoil was over,
he was the new bishop, but without the title. He was everything: in publishing,
in teaching, in running the synod, in controlling the ministerium, and in
Lutheran synodical politics. He became the American Pope
From Here to Rosebud: Syphilis Exposed
Philip G. Stephan made
a valid point in his book - the Saxon migration suffered from the same
leadership crisis that many experienced in organized groups coming to America.
Clergy and lawyers were prohibited from the New Ulm, Minnesota group because
both professions were too divisive. As
reasonable as the theory seems, the events were far too explosive to be
explained by sociology. Epidemiology is the most reasonable explanation.
Stephan had an eye for unmarried women, and the leaders knew it.
The curtain of myth in Zion on the Mississippi slips down to
the floor in one admission, where the author conceded that Stephan was up to
his old tricks in St. Louis – the same ones he employed in Germany. His female
groupies were even more shameless in hanging around his abode.
It was only a matter of weeks after arrival in
St. Louis before Stephan gradually began again to re-establish the way of life
to which he had become accustomed in Germany. The Bishop always had a number of
women staying with him at his residence in St. Louis…The nocturnal strolls were
also resumed in St. Louis, although it does not seem that even the semblance of
a religious gathering was given them there.[29]
That
was bound to attract attention and a possible necktie party in St. Louis. The
society was already being lambasted in Europe and America by various
periodicals. At first the pastors defended their leader. Soon they changed their
tune. Since adultery was not news, another development must have been the
shocker.
According to the hagiographers,
Pastor Loerber gave such a good sermon on Rogate Sunday, May 5, 1839. Two women
confessed their adultery with Stephan to Loerber after the service. One woman
was Louise Guenther.[30]
The other name or names are not clearly known. The reasons make sense if the
real shocker was the spread of syphilis in their close-knit community.
Like many synodical cover-ups, this
one is full of holes. A casual examination of Stephan’s antics in Dresden,
recorded by ecclesiastic authorities and the courts, witnessed by many, shows
him already known as a promiscuous adulterer. At least one author reveals that
Walther and Loerber did not violate the confidentiality of the confessional,
because the adultery was already known![31]
That is not much of a defense, because it means they all willingly followed an
adulterer, a man who abandoned his sick wife and family, and they pledged their
allegiance to him as a bishop.
What changed? In Pursuit of Religious Freedom states that Stephan was quite ill
before they left for America. He was
also accused of being lazy and not preaching during the ocean voyage.[32]
The
most likely change was the period of latency being over just as they came to
America. If he became contagious again, with the latency period ending, an
outbreak of syphilis among the tight-knit group would have been explosive and
alarming, especially in light of the attacks on them abroad and in St. Louis.
The leaders changed from defending him to threatening his life. Syphilitic
daughters would do that to anyone. Confirmation of this theory is well known
among a few people in the LCMS. The subsequent loyalty to Walther was more likely
based on his cover story—sparing so many from the shame Stephan brought to
their families. Walther took the lead in providing a modified, limited hang-out
(a Nixon era phrase), casting all the guilt upon one man, sparing the great
enterprise and the reputations of their soiled doves, who would have been
unable to have a healthy marriage and children after catching the evil
pestilence from their bishop.
Walther’s Stealth and the Stephan Riot
The real crisis was not
the sudden discovery of adultery in May of 1839 but the multiple reports of
syphilis among women in the Stephan migration. Contagious, final stage syphilis
can create mood disturbances, like the bitter sermon on board the ship coming
over, fatigue, and grandiose delusions. Many report that Stephan lost his
common touch with the group when they arrived in America. He demanded special
treatment and made poor decisions.
Walther began taking over immediately. His
conduct was dishonest, unethical, contrary to the regulations they all agreed
to follow when establishing their little Zion. Tragically, Walther’s conduct
became the standard for the Synodical Conference and dominates today. Walther
did not end the reign of the pietistic pope but took over his role.
Ferdinand’s first task on May 15th was to steal
40 acres of land from Stephan and organize the opposition. Walther traveled
from St. Louis to Perry County without speaking to Stephan about the new accusations.
Forster believed that Walther did not just go
to change the deeds of land in Stephan’s name; Walther’s primary goal was to
win support for a change in leadership. Walther deliberately ignored Stephan on
this occasion. He was also spreading the “news” of Stephan’s misdeeds and building
support for deposing Stephan. Soon to marry into the Beunger family, Walther
stayed with them while in the Perry County settlement. He told them and other
Society members to keep the secret of Louise Guenther’s confession and of their
plan to depose him, so that Stephan would not be warned in advance. Walther
said nothing to Stephan on this trip, nor did he speak to him privately. He had
already determined that the bishop was guilty of the charges he had deduced
from Guenther’s private confession.[33]
Walther
removed the bishop’s name from the land title, which was fraud and outright
theft. He was not able to do the same with the 80 acre parcel, which the bishop
bought with his own money. Later, Walther tricked Stephan’s son out of the
land. By May 27th, 1839, the pastors were retracting their defense
published in the German paper only one month before.[34]
Walther, Keyl, Loeber, and Buerger signed the retraction and promised to depose
the bishop.
Each of these events occurred between May 5 and
May 27. They were carefully orchestrated in St. Louis by Pastors Loeber, C. F.
W. Walther, and Keyl with the help of attorneys Vehse and Marbach, without any
communication with the bishop about their concerns and charges.[35]
On
May 28th, the pastors led two groups, by steamboat, a total of 300,
to Perry County, including only those
who agreed with them, another mark of Synodical Conference “discipline.” They
by-passed their own council, which was set up in advance to deal with disputes.
Instead, Walther led a kangaroo court and lynching party to Perry County.
On May 29th the pastors
read their charges to Stephan, who insisted on the duly constituted group to
deal with the accusations. The pastors refused this request and made that
another accusation for their long list.
On May 30th they put a
real estate agent, someone outside the Society, in charge of reading the
deposition. They accused Stephan of fornication, adultery, misappropriating the
trust fund, false doctrine, and refusing to submit to the new self-appointed
group. Vehse insisted that Stephan had to leave at once, and Stephan refused.
Subsequently, the mob vented its fury in a new series of illegal actions.
- He was forced, due to physical
threats from the crowd, to give up all claims and never return to the
settlement.
- The mob made him strip off his
clothes so they could make sure they got all of his money. They robbed him
of every cent, including a large sum, 4000 gold Thalers, saved for his
retirement. They also took his personal effects, clothing and bedding,
plus his valuable library of 1500 books.
- The crowd built fires and lashed
the home with their whips, so Stephan was forced to leave his home and
sleep in a tent by the river.
- He was forced across the river the
next day at gunpoint, which is kidnapping, landed at a remote location,
give $100 cash, a few tools, and decrepit cabin.
The
Society gave itself a bonanza by taking Stephan’s gold, his cabin and land, his
library, and his position. This gave Walther a chance to step into the same
position, and exert the same kind of control.
Bishop Stephan was joined in Illinois by his
mistress, Louis Guenther, who lived with him and cared for him. He had another
setback from being forced to sleep outdoors overnight, another indication of
his venereal disease.
Now finding him ill, she knew she had the
strength he lacked to do what it took to stay healthy. She was young, only half
his age, and previously nursed him back to health from a blistering case of
eczema (sic). Little did she know that Stephan’s persistent pneumonia would get
worse.[36]
He
did some congregational work in Illinois and died in in 1846, buried in Horse Prairie
(Red Bud), Illinois as the first American Lutheran bishop. He outlived his wife
Julia, who died in Dresden in 1844.
Walther engaged in many felonies,
enough to disqualify himself from any responsible job today, let along
leadership of a church body. Some excuse his crimes by saying it was an
emergency situation, but that was not true when Walther was head of the little
seminary and Stephan’s son came back from Europe to become a pastor. Walther
talked young Stephan out of the 80 acres that belonged to the bishop. That was
a new case of fraud and theft, not to mention a clear case of coveting. The
land became sub-divided so the father was not able to regain control of it. Nor
did he gain anything more than a pittance from going to court about the massive
theft of his gold, books, and possessions.
Young Stephan came back to America
as an architect and also became a pastor. However, he recorded in a letter that
Walther constantly undermined his work and his pastoral relationships. Walther
called him a “Judas” in a classroom lecture for returning to Germany to care
for his ailing mother, at her request. And yet, Walther had the temerity to
tell Stephan to give up his 80 acres of land – a “fraudulent swindle.”[37]
Nevertheless, Martin V became a pastor, designed the first Concordia Seminary
building in St. Louis, and contributed in many other ways as a pastor and as an
architect. Descendants continued to contribute, with one Stephan serving as the
speaker for The Lutheran Hour, a singular honor in the Missouri Synod.
Bishop Martin Stephan was an unrepentant,
serial, adulterer. If he was a false teacher, as the pastors charged during his
defenestration, then what were they - for
electing him bishop five months earlier and defending him in public one month
earlier? The pastors accused him of embezzling money, even though he did not
have direct access to the Society funds, and they continued to slander him
about money without ever disclosing the real reason for their wrath – or admitting
to their grand larceny. When In Pursuit of Religious Freedom was
published, Missouri Synod loyalists exploded in rage that the truth was
damaging their carefully crafted mythology of the origins of the Missouri
Synod. An instructive example can be found at this link, where Paul McCain
attacked the author of the book, the webmaster, the mode of publishing, the
American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Norman Teigen, and various innocent bystanders
who were trying to comment on the book:
Philip Stephan concluded that Bishop
Stephan “brought centuries of pietistic faith and practice to those who founded
the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This pietism, rooted in the Moravian
Brethren of his ancestors, was not at all rigid, enthusiastic, nor ascetic as
he demonstrated by his intensely personal relationship with God.”[38]
The Norwegians, Swedes, and Germans of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America were Pietists. The Germans of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
were Pietists. Each group struggled with the issues of Pietism versus the Lutheran Confessions. In many
ways the Missouri Synod led the others with the publication of Luther and the
Book of Concord, but the growing dominance of Universal Objective
Justification, a legacy of Walther and F. Pieper, is a throwback to the Pietism
of Halle, conveyed by Stephan to Walther and the Saxon migration.
[1] The Synodical Conference officially
broke up, but the three synods work together with the ELCA through Thrivent.
Their dramatic loss of members and the decline of their schools will soon force
some type of merger, although it may be dressed up in different clothes.
[2] Philip G. Stephan, In Pursuit of
Religious Freedom, 2008, p. 25f (hereafter cited as IPRF). Martin’s parents died while he was a teen-ager. He and his
sister fled home because of Roman Catholic oppression.
[3] IPRF, p. 32.
[4] Zinzendorf’s furtive trip to America
(under a false name) caused Lutherans to send Henry M. Muhlenberg to America
(from Halle) to serve them in 1741. Zinzendorf, who gave us the “Come Lord
Jesus” table grace and two hymns, was controversial but also extremely
influential. He was a bridge to Wesley and Methodism, a major influence on the
pioneers of the Swedish Augustana Synod.
[5] Cell groups are
Pietism, just as yoga exercises are Hinduism. The cell group is the real
church, according to Pietists, a rejection of the Means of Grace. “There is
also a family oral tradition about the hat drawn in the seal. It was believed
that the hat represented the hat that Martin used when he preached. This
preaching hat may have represented Herrnhut, which translated into English
means ‘the hat of the Lord.’ Herrnhut was always an important place in the
Pietist tradition. It was in Herrnhut where two families of Moravian Brethren
came to live on the estate of Nicholas Ludwig, called Count von Zinzendorf. The
count donated the land for their community that grew and then they built a
church on the donated property that was near Dresden…Zinzendorf was born in
1790 only seventy miles from Dresden. He had a profound influence on the
‘awakening’ movement, on Pastor Stephan, and on the Bohemian founders of St.
John’s Church in Dresden.”
#31, IPRF. p. 64.
[6] IPRF, p. 105. These records have been
available since 1986 at the Concordia Historical Institute, where Dan Preus and
Paul McCain have been directors. #18, ibid,
p. 109.
[7] His wife kicked the girl out and locked
the attic, keeping the key. Stephan broke the lock and re-installed the girl.
Sad to say, many church officials imagine they also have the same rights and
duties today, and their clergy pals look the other way.
[8] Hutchinson's triad is a common pattern
of presentation for congenital syphilis. It consists of: 1. Interstitial keratitis, 2. Hutchinson
incisors, 3. Eighth nerve deafness. Hutchinson's triad is named after Sir
Jonathan Hutchinson (1828-1913). http://classictriads.com/hutchinsons-triad
[9] The neurological damage might have made
Stephan less capable of dealing with the incredible tensions around him. At
least one writer seemed puzzled that someone once so aware found himself
uninformed and unaware. On the voyage across the ocean he was accused of doing
little work. He also gave a severely critical sermon against his shipmates.
Although exhaustion and depression might be understandable at that point, the
symptoms also fit his STD.
[10] IPRF,
p. 41f.
[11] IPRF,
p. 79.
[12] IPRF,
p. 82f. Philip Stephan is willing to believe the best about the bishop, but he
is also frank about the many recorded situations with women.
[13] IPRF,
p. 86.
[14] IPRF, p. 92f.
[15]
IPRF, p. 94.
[16] IPRF, p. 102.
[17] August R. Suelflow, Servant of the Word, The Life and Ministry of C. F. W. Walther, 2000,
p. 24.
[18] Ibid., p. 25. Stephan was a Pietist, not an
orthodox, confessional Lutheran. Stephan nor Walther were both trained in a
combination of Pietism and rationalism.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid,
p. 153. This sounds exactly like J. P. Meyer’s amalgamation of Objective
Justification and making a decision for Christ, because the Wauwatoa professors
of WELS were trained at Walther’s Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, where Walther’s
experience became the ruling norm, especially with Francis Pieper in charge.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Lay cell group leaders soon adopt the
posture of being ordained pastors, or even apostles, especially when they are
women usurping authority from men. They are eager to destroy anything that gets
in the way of their honor, power, and perks.
[23] The struggling new
synod kept cell groups for a period of time. Cell groups rose up with a shout
again in recent times because the liberal and unionistic leadership chose to
unwrap a covert Pietism which never left the Missouri Synod.
[24] Walter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi, 1953, p. 197.
[25] Herman Melville’s preacher makes much of
this fact, that “Jonah paid the fare” when he grabbed the ship sailing to the
farthest corner of the globe, away from Nineveh. A guilt-free passenger would
have dickered over the price. KJV Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto
Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a
ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to
go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
[26] IPRF,
p. 131f.
[27] Suelflow, p. 36.
[28] Fuerbringer, 1944, p. 9.
[29] Forster, Zion, p. 355.
[30] Ibid.,
p. 392.
[31] Paul McCain: “I have examined the
voluminous amount of evidence in the Concordia Historical Institute about the
theological and moral failings of Stephan, and, to say the least, it is facile
to suggest that he was the "victim" of the seal of the confessional
being broken. The lie that the Saxons only knew of Stephan's infidelity because
what was allegedly "confessed" has been spread by certain ALPB board
members for some years.
[32] IPRF,
p. 139f.
[33] Ibid.,
p. 186.
[34] IPRF,
p. 182.
[35] Ibid.
[36] IPRF,
p. 229.
[37] Ibid,
p. 269ff.
[38] Ibid.,
p. 265.
