First, Remove the Walther-LCMS Mythology

 The LCMS celebrated the 200th anniversary of Walther's birth with various efforts suggesting his infallibility, omnipotence, and omniscience. Compare that lengthy and solemn celebration and consider Missouri mocking Luther with gimmicks like the Reformation dog collar, a few years later.

Various points are good to remember when people act as if Walther is the final word on theological issue:

1. Walther only earned a bachelor's degree at a rationalistic university, Leipzig, and he was certified by the state church's rationalistic supervisors. His clergy father was also a rationalist. Did Walther have two stories - one for those who gave him a call and another for his cell group?
2. Walther's additional training consisted of his submission to one abusive, Pietistic guru and then a second abusive Pietistic cult leader - Martin Stephan.
3. Walther served as the enforcer in the clergy group that followed Stephan, yet Stephan's adultery with young women was never an object of concern until it suited Walther and his pals. Then they organized a riot that threatened, robbed, and kidnapped Stephan.
4. Stephan, like Jim Heiser, made himself a bishop and had his clergy followers - including Walther - sign the document.
5. Walther and his clergy friends were schocked, schocked that Stephan was an adulterer, even though their bishop left his wife and kids in Europe and took his mistress Louise Guenther on the same ship with him to America.
6. Walther and his brother kidnapped their niece and nephew from their father's parsonage. Their excuse was pathetic - the kids wanted to go to America. According to Zion on the Mississippi, other minors went along, and the Stephanites rejoiced. The police sought Walther, to arrest him, but he let his future mother-in-law go to jail instead while he sailed to America.
7. Stealing Bishop Martin Stephan's land, money, books, and personal possessions benefited the cult enormously; few of us remember those measures being part of the disciplinary measures used against a sinner.
8. Walther feigned great humility but went on to be in charge of everything.
9. How did such an expert in theology choose Baier to be the norm of Lutheran theology? - Walther as editor, naturally. Baier was far removed from the Reformation and the Book of Concord era.
10. When we start with Walther, Baier, and their loyalists, how soon do we get to Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz? Never.