The Final Result of Worshiping CFW Walther

Good evening Pastor Jackson,

This excerpt is from the Concordia Theological Quarterly, Volume 77:1-2, January/April 2013.

This essay from Mark Braun is entitled "The Reception of Walther's Theology in the Wisconsin Synod"

[Beginning of Quotation]

" (August) Pieper criticized Walther for an overdependence on “the secondary sources of theology―Luther and lesser fathers,” and for his willingness to take over “dozens of proof passages from Luther and the dogmaticians,” even though they “do not prove what they are supposed to prove.” Pieper considered Walther a “brilliant dogmatician” but “an inferior exegete.” However justified Walther’s method may have been at the beginning of his teaching, it was “in principle and in practice wrong” because “it did not rest directly on Scripture and did not lead one directly into it.” Though his method “did no harm to the correct doctrine of Walther and his students,” it nonetheless “stressed too strongly the importance of Luther and the Lutheran Confessions and the Lutheran fathers in comparison with Scripture.” At its worst, “it even led to this, that later one did not stop with quoting Luther and the old fathers, but now one also quoted Walther” for proof of correct doctrine. Pieper was reported as having remarked, perhaps only partly tongue-in-cheek, “We could not persuade Missourians with the Bible, but when we quoted Walther to them, then they believed us.” Recalling his own student days, Pieper charged that “the average student in Walther’s time made out poorly” in “everything except dogmatics and pastoral theology.” New Testament exegesis “consisted mainly of dictated quotations from the Lutheran exegetes of the 16th and 17th centuries.” In isagogics “the Bible itself was seldom used in class,” and so “students came out of the seminary without having the slightest ability in exegesis” and “had not ever studied a single book of Holy Scripture some
what thoroughly.” 

Pieper did not reject the legitimate role of systematic theology; in a review of Schaller’s Biblical Christology in 1919, Pieper wrote that underestimating the value of doctrinal theology was “one of the gravest mistakes the Church could make.” History and exegesis provide the necessary foundation and “a full knowledge [of the] Gospel,” but “systematic theology must shape its form, and give it the proper finish.” Dogmatics fostered “accuracy of thought and the precision of logical expression peculiar,” making it “an indispensable study and a most potent factor in the training of masterly minds.”  Yet Pieper repeatedly voiced warnings against the dangers inherent in dogmatic theology. “The systemizing tendency of Lutheran dogmatics emphasized” the importance of Scripture “in principle but in the application often failed. And the more they systematized, the greater was the damage. Ever since Calixtus, everything had to fit into the logical straightjacket.” The dogmaticians “learned the disinguendam est [‘a distinction must be made’] to the minutest detail and―without any evil intention―damaged Scripture here and there.” 

While dogmatics is “altogether indispensable” for keeping the gospel pure, it is also “is in constant danger of losing the spirit of the gospel and becoming a dead skeleton as a result of processes that involve the intellect alone.” Dogma becomes “the word crystallized into an inflexible form” that “does not express the full content of Scripture.”  Koehler likewise warned that “dogmatic training” and “the dogmatism it produces will establish an array of doctrinal theses and make an outward rule of them, without probing their deep content and inner connection.” Worse, “it will seek, by means of a supposed logical reasoning, to achieve a connected system of thought, whereby in fact Biblical truth is emptied of it content and the resulting Christian knowledge and life is left superficial. This overemphasis on dogmatic theology and a corresponding neglect of exegetical theology helped to create what many outsiders referred to as                                                          
the “Missouri spirit,” evident “in hundreds of concrete cases, in raising suspicions about doctrine, in dead silence about the boycotting of nonsynodical literature, in competition in the area of foreign mission work, in a smug tone of criticism of non-synodical church institutions and theological accomplishments and in all kinds of scornful talk and remarks.” Most likely referring to his own synod, August Pieper charged that “this attitude is taken not only toward the synods that have remained hostile, but also toward those that in the course of time were recognized as sufficiently Lutheran.” This attitude “confronts even the friends of the Missouri Synod again and again to the present day.” 

[End of Quotation]

I apologize for the length of the quote. I wanted to keep it all within context. Koehler, August Pieper and John Schaller went to the seminary in St. Louis. They all had Walther as an instructor there. I will continue to keep you and Mrs. Jackson in my prayers.

In Christ

 I adjusted the title because Stephan left as a criminal, not because he was searching for religious freedom in America.

LCMS myth-minders are not happy that this book is so frank, yet the real story of Stephan's STD and Walther's cover-up has not been told.