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| Matthias Loy. And I was there. No, really. I visited the retired pastor of Loy's parish in Delaware, Ohio. |
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| Who explained Knapp so well that Walther loved the two categories - Objective and Subjective Justification? The Calvinist Woods wrote the explanation to Knapp's rather opaque and labored dogma. I would say that Walther's Calvinism came from Halle Pietism, which was dominant in CFW's life, especially his UOJ mentor Bishop Martin Stephan, STD. |
From The Story of My Life by Matthias Loy, chapter 6.
Overburdened as I was with work after the Standard had become a weekly, circumstances in 1882 impelled me to undertake additional editorial labors. With the Missourians we had long been at peace, and our relations had become so cordial that we had united with them in forming the Synodical Conference. It had always been a favorite idea of mine that the Lutheran Church in this country should, so far as this could be done on the basis of her confession, join her forces and all parts work together for the spread and defense of the precious truth of the Reformation, and especially that different organizations professing the same faith should cease to place obstacles in each other’s way by occupying the same territory and pursuing special synodical interests at the expense of the Church’s welfare as a whole.
According to the will of God churches of the same faith must treat each other as brethren and help each other, and causing division and working against each other is sin. Whilst I knew quite well that the external union of churches into large organizations is not commanded, I regarded it as a requirement of Christian wisdom and love to form such unions in order to avoid interferences with each other’s work and to make the best possible use of the various gifts and opportunities for the common good.
I was therefore sincere in my desire to have our Synod unite with other Lutheran Synods in the General Council, and regretted that the position taken by that body rendered this impossible without sacrificing all that could make the union desirable. Any scheme of expediency, however wise it may seem, is merely human folly when it is set up against the wisdom of God. Therefore I contended against the Council when it declined to act in accordance with the good Confession which it formally adopted. It was the same principle that actuated me in my efforts towards securing a union with other Synods which, like our own, could not unite with the Council, and I was therefore glad when the Synodical Conference was organized, as I was sorry that, from my point of view, the Council had been a failure. But after six or eight years of harmonious co-operation in that body, troubles came. The elements united in the Conference were not in every respect congenial, but they were one in the same Lutheran faith and thus harmonious in all that is requisite for true unity in the Church.
Some of our ministers did not like the supercilious ways of some of the Missourians, and were not as cordial as might be wished even with some of the Missourian leaders. The Wisconsin and Minnesota men were even less enthusiastic in their admiration of Missourians, and occasionally something akin to antipathy was shown towards some of them, who sometimes conducted themselves as if they were not averse to being regarded as the princes of the court and the others their retinue. Notwithstanding these undesirable manifestations the synods were growing together nicely, and there was no serious jarring or jangling in prosecuting the work in which all were heartily engaged.
The trouble that came was of a doctrinal sort. Even before the formation of our Conference, some views of predestination had been published by Missourian pastors which had a Calvinistic taint. But this was not in their official organs. What these had published was acceptable to all of us. But in 1877 Dr. Walther began to advocate a theory which excited doubt and suspicion. On most of us what was published in the minutes of the Missouri Synod made little impression. It was a confused discussion of a difficult subject, and little notice was taken of it until it was made the subject of inquiries among the Missourians themselves. Prof. Schmidt, of the Norwegian Synod, finally made public his scruples about the doctrine of Dr. Walther and showed its inconsistency with that of the Lutheran Church.
Instead of revoking his error, Dr. Walther defended it. He was not accustomed to any dissent from his teaching among his own people, and was never inclined to yield a point when any of them ventured publicly to express a doubt, which as a rule was done, if done at all, in the way of a humble request for further light. So the predestinarian controversy began, and our Ohio Synod became entangled in it because of our connection with the Synodical Conference in which it had sprung up, and which must ultimately accept or reject the new doctrine.
From the beginning my sympathies were entirely with Prof. Schmidt, who defended the doctrine which the Lutheran Church had been unanimous in teaching for three hundred years; but it seemed to me that Dr. Walther had rather become confused in his expositions, and that when the matter should be cleared up he would correct his extravagant expressions and accept the uniform teachings of the old dogmaticians, from which he still quoted largely, as was his wont.
The printed Minutes by which the conflagration was started, show two irreconcilable lines of thought, and I was loathe to think that the Calvinistic line was designed to be dominant, and that the purpose was to introduce a mild form of Calvinism. But as the controversy continued I could not close my eyes to the fact, as it became more and more apparent, that Dr. Walther maintained a theory that was essentially Calvinistic.
This was expressed in the Standard, and before the subject came before the Synodical Conference the Missourians, under Dr. Walther’s leadership, had adopted a plan by which all who were convinced that the new theory was a species of Calvinism should be denied a seat in that body. As they had a large majority in it, the Ohio Synod, seeing it to be useless under such circumstances to make any effort to secure the triumph of Anti-Calvinism in a body from which any one attacking Walther’s Calvinism was excluded, declared its withdrawal.
