The Pietist Walther Brothers
Missouri Synod mythology
focuses on CFW Walther, but the cell group affiliation began with the older
brother at Leipzig University. Otto joined Tutor Kuehn’s group, inviting his
brother to join when he arrived at the university. The brothers remained
together in that group for 10 years and continued with Martin Stephan, another
Pietist cell group leader, until the younger brother kidnapped him, sending him
to Illinois. They even coordinated the kidnapping of their nephew and niece
from their father’s parsonage, because they claimed the children wanted to go
to America. When Otto died, his congregation in St. Louis extended the call to
CFW, who accepted it.
Kuehn was scorned as a
Pietist when he was a student at Leipzig, as were his disciples. As Forster
observed in Zion on the Mississippi, that opposition drew the group
together, and they remained close friends, the entire circle submitting to Stephan
when Kuehn moved away and died. CFW began his studies at Leipzig in 1829 “and
was promptly introduced into the Pietist circles of the university and the
city.”[1]
Consumption and the effects of Kuehn’s Pietistic acts of contrition forced CFW
home to recuperate.
Kuehn’s
approach was excessive and harsh. He urged the group to practice various kinds
of denial and hardship in order to test and prove their conversion and
commitment and join Christ in His sufferings. It was said of the leader that he
had come to his spiritual certainty through many temptations and believed
others should do the same. Walther practiced these spiritual exercises to the
extreme, depriving himself of food and exercise because he thought these things
were sinful.[2]
The Old Testament scholar
Delitsch, an observer of the Walther-Stephan years, wrote:
During
that period of struggle he was wasted like a skeleton, coughed blood, suffered
from insomnia, and experienced the terrors of hell. He was more dead than
alive.[3]
During this time,
Walther read Luther, which is often mentioned by his admirers today as proof of
his profound education. Unlike today, Luther was respected as the greatest
Biblical expositor of Christianity, so even the Reformer’s opponents studied
him. Walther was weak in Biblical languages and spent his teaching career and
ministry uttering his truths in dogmatic statements, which had little
relationship to the Scriptures, even when cited. His example has been a burden
on American Lutherans, who placed loyalty to Walther far above knowledge of the
Scriptures and Luther. LutherQuest and Christian News made Walther the
final word on every issue, locking them into the Stephan-Walther Objective
Justification nonsense which plagues all of Lutherdom today. Proof comes from
the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, 2017, when the Lutheran
church bodies were tepid in recognizing Luther but were not ashamed to mock him
and sell Luther trinkets through Concordia Publishing House.
From Bishop to Pope
The conditions for
following Stephan were extreme, and this protected his position, authority, and
prerogatives as a separatist leader. Anyone who looks at Stephan’s style can
easily see how Walther adopted it. Of course, the dictatorial attitude
conditioned the Walther circle under Kuehn for ten years, so submitting to
Stephan was not an abrupt change. In fact, Walther felt transported from “Hell
to Heaven” through Stephan’s spiritual advice.[4]
In
the eyes of his followers Stephan became the champion of orthodoxy, the
defender of the faith. They firmly asserted that the means of grace were
dependent upon his person and that, if he were silenced, the Lutheran Church
would cease to exist in Saxony. Stephan’s doctrine was unerringly true, his
solution to a question inevitably correct. Any criticism of or opposition to
the Dresden pastor was condemned in the harshest terms. Stephan became an
oracle, and all who disagreed with him, or with whom he disagreed, were wrong…The
Stephanites were the Church.[5]
Those who are innocent
of LCMS training can see the transfer of this delusion from Stephan to Walther
and to many, but not all, of the Missouri clergy today. Nothing was more
Stephanite than Synod President Harrison leading the convention to remove from
the ministry anyone discussing doctrine without having the specific office. For
many congregations, including those critical of the administration, that
removal from the official list would be proof. The Left Foot of Fellowship
would be extended, in love, to the pastor or teacher targeted for silencing.
Stephan’s clergy
followers were docile and obedient, which only encouraged his vainglory.
Forster blames the adulation of his followers, but the effect of syphilis
should not be ignored. Stephan garnered great respect for his leadership,
advice, preaching, and counseling in the early years. Hostility grew around
1825, when he assumed he could do no wrong, and his followers saw opposition as
the result of his unique leadership. His orientation was Pietism, but Stephan
also emphasized the Book of Concord and had Concordia Hours where the Formula
of Concord was the chief topic. He was unusual in that rationalistic era for
embracing the Confessions and the Scriptures. Although denying it, Walther
continued the style and content of Stephan’s work.
[1] Zion,
p. 46.
[2] In
Search of Religious Freedom, p. 67.
[3]
Zion, p. 47.
[4] Zion,
p. 63.
[5]
Zion, p. 63f.
