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More Walther Draft - The Pietist Synods

LCMS President Jack Preus posed with LCA President Robert Marshall 

and ALS President (Jack's first cousin) David Preus.

Robert (left) and Jack Preus are with their parents. Jacob Preus was the governor of Minnesota and a Lutheran insurance magnate. The family still uses this private camping area.

The Pietist Synods

Pietism was the energy behind missions, so the Lutheran bodies had their beginnings with a powerful longing to be one with the Reformed. Count Zinzendorf came to America under a false name, recruiting Lutherans for his Moravian sect.[1] He was not an ordained pastor. That prompted the authorities to send an open Pietist from Halle – Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, a trained pastor, which counted. He identified with Pietism and was trained in the Francke Pietist institutions. He organized the first church in 1742, identifying with the Augsburg Confession, but naming it Augustus, after founder of the Halle institutions. This is now called Old Trappe Church.

Paleo-Pietism, The ELCA

The Pennsylvania Ministerium grew into the General Synod in 1820 by uniting with other regional Lutheran groups. The Pennsylvania Ministerium withdrew to pursue union with Reformed congregations. This attraction formed union congregations with two liturgies, two confirmations, sometimes with the same pastor.

Samuel Schmucker led the General Synod into an era of confessional strife and separation. He was trained at Princeton Seminary (Calvinist) and never maintained a Biblical, Lutheran position. He helped found Gettysburg Seminary (now ironically called United Lutheran Seminary), and taught for 40 years, serving as president. United Lutheran Seminary recently hired a Calvinist as its first president, Theresa Latini, a former dean of diversity at a Calvinist seminary. They fired her soon after.[2]

Schmucker and others tried hard to move the General Synod into complete merger with the Calvinists, and that led to half the congregations leaving to form the General Council and the Philadelphia seminary.[3] The General Council objected to revivalism, Calvinist doctrine, and denial of Biblical, Lutheran doctrine. The books published by General Council members show a great appreciation for the Reformation and Luther’s Biblical doctrine. The split came together again in 1918, celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the Reformation and setting the stage for another drift toward Calvinism and rationalism.

WELS Pietism

The geographical parts of the Wisconsin Synod – Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan – were unionist entities. The bizarre two communions and two catechisms were quite familiar in those states. Congregations were named Evangelical and Reformed, which meant Lutheran and Calvinist, until some began to resist the movement.  Nevertheless, the past kept a fondness for non-Lutheran doctrine and cell groups as active forces, while rationalism invaded the seminaries. Seminary Professor Adolph Hoenecke, another Halle graduate, moved the Wisconsin Synod away from their fondness for Calvinist-Lutheran congregations.[4]

LCMS Pietism – Loehe, Stephan

Loehe and Stephan were two examples of Pietists establishing new churches in America. Loehe was very active in world missions, setting up two seminaries for training pastors (Ft. Wayne, LCMS, and Wartburg, now ELCA). The Loehe congregations were set up with good leaders and prospered. The most famous is Frankenmuth, Michigan. The Loehe pastors invited the Perryville cult to join them, so there is a double fiction involved.

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[1] That may remind many people of those “conservative”  Lutheran pastors who train at Fuller Seminary, obtain degrees there, and deny they have anything to do with Church Growth.

[2] “Fired Seminary President,”March 17, 2018. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/united-luther-seminary-president-fired-theresa-latini-philadelphia-gettysburg-gay-lgbtq-onebyone-20180317.html

[3] I was interviewed for a position at the Philadelphia Seminary. They already had their candidate, so I got a free trip and a chance to practice my dissertation on a student audience. At lunch I met one of the last of the conservative professors there.  

[4] The CLC church building in New Ulm, Minnesota, is from a split in the WELS congregation, a block away. A new pastor came to the WELS parish and said, “I thought we were done with the Reformed.” The Calvinists packed up and created their own church, which became through mergers United Church of Christ. The CLC bought it when the UCC built a new church and moved downtown.

More Walther - Rough Draft - Walther The American Calvin

 

Worship and Doctrinal Works with ELCA? Sure! Piestism = Unionism = LCMS-WELS-ELS

Efficacy of the Word

Denying the efficacy of the Word is the key to the errors of Zwingli, Calvin, and all Enthusiasts – those who separate the Spirit from the Word. Efficacy is foundational throughout the Bible, starting with Genesis 1. Basic to Zwingli and Calvin is denial of this divine energy always working with the Word and never apart from the Word. They consider the Bible itself as “dead letter” - unless the interpreter makes it come alive, or germane and appealing. One example from Calvinist lore is – the Word is like an iron statue in a garden, pointing the way but not providing the energy.

Rejection of the Means of Grace

The Means of Grace are the invisible Word in preaching and teaching, the visible Word in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Zwingli mocked the sacraments, saying the Holy Spirit did not need a vehicle, like an ox cart (Ratio Fidei). Calvin mocked Holy Communion in the Institutes in childish questions about the Blood and Body of Christ. Today the term often used for the sacraments is – ordinances – laws. Christians should obey these commandments, if only as a witness to others, but baptism and communion do not convey forgiveness.

Reason Dominates Faith, Replaces Faith

Biblical doctrine is not a long cafeteria line where people can pick what most appeals to them. Zwingli and Calvin placed reason above faith, which meant excluding what they rejected rather than studying the Scriptures to understand and trust the mysteries revealed by the Holy Spirit. Young Calvinists – as they often admit - become old Unitarians, and the Calvinism of the founding denominations becomes the Green New Deal woke activism of the present.

Pietism – A Troubled Merger of Calvinism and Lutheran Doctrine

Unfortunately, the Lutherans were drawn into the constant doctrinal attacks waged by the late-arriving Calvinists, who sought to replace the Reformation with their deformation. This fostered the misnamed era of Lutheran Orthodoxy, where the stage was set with Latin terms countered by Latin terms, a new Talmud where the Word itself was surrounded by so many layers of expert testimony that the meaning was lost. Spener stepped into battle as the first ecumenical theologian – take note of that term. He was a Lutheran impressed by the Calvinists and Catholics. His two most important contributions (mistakes) were the cell group and doctrinal indifference.

The cell group moved the definition of the Church into the form of a small group of laity who prayed and studied the Bible. That was – and is – the real Church. The congregation is for them - only a convenient place to organize the cells. The cells are superior to the others in the congregation. One modern writer said, “The minister is only a pastor, but we are apostles.”

Spener placed love over sound doctrine, in contrast to St. Paul and Luther, who taught love as the fruit of the Gospel Word. This indifference was promoted in the name of stopping the fights, but Pietism started a new era of battles. Since the Pietists were always the holy ones, what they did was fine, even though the unredeemed fought against them.

Pietism Was the Midwife of Stephan, Walther

Stephan had all the marks of a Pietist leader:

·        The Bohemians were Pietists, through Zinzendorf.

·        Stephan was a Bohemian.

·        His congregation was set up for Bohemians and allowed to have cell groups on the property. Zinzendorf originally donated the property.

·        Stephan led cell groups on the property, and breaking the conventicle laws, in other locations.

·        Stephan had his initial congregation and another gathering there, comprised of Christians who came to hear him speak.

·        Stephan became the leader of the Walther circle of pastors, who looked for a leader after their initial cell group guru, Kuehn, moved away and died.

CFW Walther and his brother grew up in a rationalistic pastor’s household and had their only academic training at Leipzig University, whose faculty was mostly rationalistic. The state church was rationalistic and distrusted the Pietists. The older brother led CFW to join the Kuehn cell group.

CFW Walther’s Pietism was plain:

1.      He rejected the rationalistic era, but was still given a pastoral call. Was he a fox or a chameleon?

2.      His associations, his closest friends, were Pietists.

3.      His group moved to Stephan when Kuehn died.

4.      He served as the enforcer for Stephan, making sure everyone in the circle obeyed Stephan or were shunned until they begged forgiveness.

5.      In their purity, the Walther group refused to see the adultery of Stephan and CFW later blamed it on Stephan’s wife.

6.      Walther did not become the new Luther in America but replaced Stephan – not as the bishop but as the pope.

7.      He spent a lifetime replacing the Chief Article of Christianity with Halle University’s Objective Justification.

8.      He tried to support his Justification without Faith by teaching Election without Faith.

9.      His dishonest manipulation of the call gave the job to Franz Pieper, who established the Synodical Conference canon by the time of his death.

Waldo Werning, Who's Who in Church Growth, Fuller Alumnus, Christian News covert author