Walther Myth – Against Cell Groups
CFW Walther and his
older brother were involved in cell groups from the beginning. In the
rationalistic church of their father, they felt a need for something closer to
the Bible. Their university training was largely rationalistic and Pietists
were called “mystics,” a derogatory term.
The Walther circle
consisted of men who gathered in a cell group and were led by two Pietistic gurus. The first leader - H. Johann
Gottlieb Kuehn - was very strict; he moved away and died. Kuehn was true to
Pietistic notions of the time and had his disciples mortify the flesh. Walther
took this so seriously that he was on the verge of dying. [Zion, details]
The cell group looked
for another Pietistic leader when Kuehn died. They affiliated with Pastor
Martin Stephan, Dresden. The massive Stephanite migration to America makes no
sense apart from the unification they gained from their cell group
identification. They were not only just friends, but obedient disciples of one
Pietistic master, then another. The situation reminds me of the concept in
India of the guru, a term we borrow and use rather lightly. The guru
establishes a lifelong master-disciple relationship which demands complete and
unquestioning obedience.
Being a Pietist in a
rationalistic state church unified them as a minority, a persecuted minority.
The Walther circle were refused divine calls - and in some cases - they refused to accept one. They were set
apart and different, a higher order. As one Pentecostal expressed it, “I was
baptized and went to church, but I was not a Christian until…”
The Moment of Universal Absolution – Objective Justification
Walther’s moment came
when he wrote to Stephan for advice. He was in a state of physical and
spiritual agony, without a spiritual leader. When he read the response from
Stephan, Walther felt his life was saved. Stephan’s concept became his, and
Walther taught it the rest of his life. Stephan, like the Halle Pietist
Rambach, taught that the entire world was absolved the moment Christ rose from
the dead.
Pietism scorned the
Means of Grace, because the cell group was their means of grace. The invisible
Word of teaching and preaching, the visible Word of Baptism and Communion –
they were institutional laws far beneath the grace of the intense prayer group,
Bible study group experience.
1 Timothy 3:16
Someone must start with
the distortion of Objective Justification to see it in 1 Timothy 3:16 And
without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was
manifest in the flesh,
justified in the
Spirit,
seen of angels,
preached unto the
Gentiles,
believed on in the
world,
received up into glory.
The Halle explanation
(contrary to Chemnitz) claimed the entire world was absolved from sin the moment
Christ rose from the dead. The Spirit is often used instead of the Word because
the Word and Spirit always work together. The Scriptures proclaim many times
over that Jesus was without sin, which is why He rose from the dead. Mortal,
sinful men must die, but not the spotless Lamb of God, who died in our place.
Jesus was declared to be righteous, quite different from declaring the entire
world innocent, before and without the Gospel Word.
This error, which John
Brenner teaches as the truth, became the background for Walther’s Election
without Faith. Objective Justification and Election without Faith became
enormously divisive among Lutherans in America, but that has subsided with the
leaders – and ELCA – preferring election and salvation without faith.
The Early Martin Stephan
Stephan was born a
Bohemian, a Pietist. His people were driven out of Bohemia by the Catholics,
and the exclusion made permanent by the evil Jesuits. Bohemia, not far from
Dresden, is where Count von Zinzendorf established and protected his Bohemian
Pietists. Zinzendorf gave the land in Dresden where the Bohemians were buried,
where they worshiped in a chapel. Because their movement was known for cell groups,
largely made illegal in Europe for the trouble they caused, this church was
able to call its own pastor and conduct cell group meetings on the church
property. Thus they called Stephan and he exploited his privileges by holding
meetings in public places where it was easier for mischief to develop.
Stephan married a woman
from a wealthy, accomplished family. She bore him many children and opposed his
adultery without breaking up the family.
Early Stephan developed
a reputation as a leader who promoted the Scriptures and the Lutheran
Confessions, in an age like ours, where neither one was respected by the elite
and influential in the visible church. Stephan became known as a powerful and influential
preacher. His cell groups and counseling gathering a second church, in a sense,
of those outside the original parish who wanted to hear Stephan speak.
The Unspoken Scandal Shreds the Myths
The LCMS leaders know
that Stephan’s problem was more than immorality. This is not in the written
records but is the Rosetta Stone that explains the turmoil and timing of Stephan
riot and kidnapping, the rise of his second-in-command, CFW Walther.
Stephan was not merely
an adulterer. Being a good counselor to many is often accompanied by fragile
egos expressing thanks or manipulating men exploiting emotions and dependency. He
contracted syphilis at some stage, gave this horrid disease to some of his children,
and lost his position when Walther exploited the syphilis break-out among the
young women in the Stephanite cult in America.
No one wants to admit
this. Even
the Stephan family memoir skips over this fact, though it is quite frank and
yet fair in its treatment of everyone involved. However, syphilis explains many
aspects of Stephan’s life and final days.
1.
He went to spas for his rash, which is
one of the common symptoms of syphilis.
2. Several of his children suffered from
syphilitic symptoms, which the father would have transmitted to their mother.
They died young in institutions.
3.
Stephan’s many walks, often accompanied
by young women, suggest his discomforts.
4.
Stephan became quite morose and angry during
the ocean voyage, and an angry bitter sermon he gave on his ship proclaimed the
followers were not worthy of him.
5.
Stephan became irrational and grandiose in
America, quite impractical, which led to additional financial hardship. He
insisted on starting in America as a bishop and drew up his contract, which CFW
Walther signed (but not Walther’s brother).
6.
Just as the police were suspicious of
Stephan in Dresden, so were the residents who noticed no wife, but a number of
women hanging around the bishop in St. Louis.
7.
Everyone in the Walther circle knew the
bishop was a flagrant adulterer, but they concocted a story that they suddenly
found out after a blistering sermon on sin caused a woman to confession her
adulterous affair with Stephan.
8.
The cause of the riot against Stephan,
which Walther organized, was the heart-breaking scandal of young women
condemned to slowly die, unmarried, from the disease their leader gave them.
9.
Stephan’s main mistress came over in the
same ship with Stephan and his son. She also crossed the river to join him in
his last days in Illinois.
