The actual history is quite exciting, from the Walther brothers kidnapping their own niece and nephew, to electing Martin Stephan as their bishop, just before robbing and kidnapping him.
They forced him across the river to Illinois - at gunpoint, which is described today as "giving Stephan three options."
Zion on the Mississippi is quite informative.
So is In Search of Religious Freedom, by a Stephan family member.
The Muhlenberg tradition (General Synod, General Council, ULCA, LCA) - Began in Pietism - at Halle University. Rationalism and radical political activism are the natural progression of Pietism.
LCMS founder Martin Stephan never graduated from college (like Pope John the Malefactor) but he did attend Halle University, home of rationalistic Pietism and UOJ - OJ and SJ (Knapp). PS - Pope John rushed to finish his college degree after he was named Knapp Professor of New Testament at Bethany Lutheran Seminary.
WELS dogmatician Adolph Hoenecke graduated from Halle University, but nobody reads him, so it does not matter. WELS was unionistic and Pietistic to a fault and now celebrates those orgins with their loyalty to Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, and other cesspools.
The Norwegians were Pietists, which is why so many found UOJ to be their mother's milk.
The Augustana Synod has an interesting history. Started in unionism and Pietism, since they were united against the corruption of the state church, they were influenced by W. Passavant and their own seminary professor (who studied at Cap Seminary) to be be Augsburg Confession Lutherans. That is where they got the name Augustana, the Latin name for Augsburg. Augustana opposed the UOJ of the Norwegians, which became the fourth statement of the Kokomo Statements, which WELS regards as canonical.
Kokomo Statement IV
IV. "At the time of the resurrection of Christ, God looked down in hell and declared Judas, the people destroyed in the flood, and all the ungodly, innocent, not guilty, and forgiven of all sin and gave unto them the status of saints."233The Lutherans of America came over as Pietists. Some genuinely struggled to recover the Lutheran Confessions, as the Henkelites and General Council did.
The LCMS was burdened with the CFW Walther myth of his infallible and inerrant teaching. Just as Calvin branded everyone else an Arminian, so Walther labeled any threat "a false teacher." As many admit, he dismantled the Old Synodical Conference with his predestination fanaticism, which John Sparky Brenner admits was another volley of UOJ.
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| Knapp's label-maker - OJ and SJ - was a Calvinist. And Woods was not just any Calvinist but a celebrity superstar Calvinist, very influential at the time and from henceforth forevermore. Knapp is still in print, and it was the dominant theology textbook in the 19th century. |
Note that Pietism tends to re-assert itself in time, when people seek the truth of Luther's Biblical doctrine. Pietism is unmoored from any kind of confession of faith, so it moves from cell-group intimacy to rationalism.
Watch all the Church Growth congregations assert their left-wing political activism - as if they invented compassion - while they go rapidly downhill.
The Methodist Church? - born in Zinzendorf Pietism, radical and almost empty today.
