Zion on the Mississippi is easy to find on the used book market. I got mine for about $10. It was owned by one of the original Stephanite families - Stellhorn (The Error of Modern Missouri).
The last few days were waiting room times - routine tests - so I had a chance to read the first 70 pages
paragraph by paragraph.
The background for the establishment of the Saxon migration is the unbreakable template of the Synodical Conference today.
Pietism grew after the death of Lutheran Orthodoxy, the post-Concord years that were filled with brilliant and faithful books by great theologians. Some of them were Chemnitz, Gerhard, Leyser, Hunnius, and Calov.
Halle University was established to teach and promote Pietism, which was known for two characteristics:
1. A unionistic spirit that disavowed doctrinal battles in favor of cooperation with non-Lutheran Protestants.
2. Lay-led Bible study groups, conventicles, that were the true church.
Halle became rationalistic in steps, which also explains what happened to Germany. Pietism turned to rationalism and the second wave of Pietism emerged as a blend of dogmas - cell groups and Lutheran Confessions, with an emphasis on the cell groups.
Bishop Martin Stephan, the true founder of Missouri, came from the Bohemian Pietists, studied at Halle and Leipzig (never graduating), and got the call to the Bohemian Pietistic congregation. They could call an unqualified man to Dresden because the parish was given the freedom to manage their own affairs, to hold conventicles at their church (illegal elsewhere), and build up a nice endowment fund.
CFW Walther and his brother were connected with Pietistic friends through Candidate Kuehn, a very severe and legalistic leader who demanded submission to his authority. As Leipzig students they wanted an alternative to rationalistic training for the ministry. They got their fellowship through Kuehn as their leader and a philobiblicum (lay-led Bible study group, the Halle model).
This group was young, impressionable, and acclimated to a single authority figure. When Kuehn finally received a call, moved away, and died one year later, the group gravitated to Stephan's leadership and authority. He demanded absolute submission, and the group kept their unity by enforcing this. Various challenges and conflicts led the group into even more of a lock-step approach.
This association was entirely Pietistic in its outlook. Stephan was unusual in his emphasis on the Confessions, but his primary emphasis was the cell group and his ministry of counseling others, as he did with CFW (whose brother was also part of the group). Stephan literally saved Walther's life with his interpretation of justification, which he learned from Halle - doubtless from Knapp himself.
Walther later admitted that his version of justification came from Stephan, and this Easter-absolution version never changed. If people would just read a few books, they would see how this makes sense. Halle Pietists like Knapp and Rambach taught the Easter absolution of the entire world.
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| VP Paul Kuske agrees this is a crock, that one more class is graduating from Mequon filled with UOJ heresy. |
Stephan was not an intellectual, and he disavowed the more difficult books of a college career. He even refused to take the qualifying tests. He was a drop-out, but a powerful personality. Like the Shrinkers of today, he attracted an outside group, his German CORE, and they did what they liked.
Stephan had enough male groupie clergy supporting him that he could bypass the criticisms of the state, fellow clergy, even his own Bohemian congregation.
Given the freedom to run a conventicle Pietistic ministry from his Dresden church, Stephan gave himself the license to associate with young single women, hold conventicles wherever he pleased at all hours of the night, and collect money from his German CORE.
Outside the Stephan cult, older ministers were leery of the leader or just plain disgusted with him. Nevertheless, he also had support from prominent men.
He was investigated with increasing vigor, and his behavior was increasingly bad. That made the clergy circle feel persecuted, which solidified their identity, as Forster pointed out.
Much of the clergy behavior then is reproduced today by those who accept the perfection of their own little sect. Harrison orders his supporters to remove threads on criminal rape by one of their own, thanks to the DP and others - and they comply.
Schroeder does nothing about long-term breeches in clergy conduct, and his clergy silence themselves. "That's the way it is, folks. Always was. Always will be."
We should all fall on our knees and thank God that the Twelve Apostates (WELS DPs) were not the founders of the Christian Church.
Walther only knew total obedience to a dictator, so he became the same when his chance came. He organized the mob that threatened, robbed, and kidnapped Bishop Stephan. In a few years the bishop was replaced with a pope. No one dared to oppose the Great Walther. If he did not want an early history of Missouri written, it was not written.
If he wanted to beat up on Stephan's son, he was allowed to vent his spleen on the young man, who willingly gave up the land stolen from his father by Walther - 120 acres in all.
Fortunately, some of that abusive sect behavior has been watered down in Missouri, thanks to many different influences and new blood.
But abusive sect behavior continues in WELS and the micro-minis.
