Draft - More Details on Threatening, Robbing, and Kidnapping the Bishop

May 28, 300 Roared Off the Steamship

Walther organized the mob that arrived in Perryville and surrounded the bishop’s cabin. Only those against the bishop were allowed to take the trip. They threatened his life, held him at gunpoint, forced him out of his home, stole all his money, took all his books and personal possessions, and forced him across the river to Illinois. They even disrobed him to make sure he was not hiding any money.[1]

This action has been called “deposing the bishop,” but it was a series of crimes and completely unscriptural. This mob activity led by Walther set the precedent in the LCMS-WELS-ELS for ignoring due process and Matthew 18, assuming dictatorial powers, and abusing people with the theme of might makes right.

First of all, only the people already in agreement with Walther were allowed to travel from St. Louis to Perryville. Those with a different opinion were left behind, not a voters’ assembly but a kangaroo court. They were fired up for execution, not for pastoral admonition and discipline. To compound the deceit of the times, the LCMS guides in Peryville today tell the innocent that the bishop was given three options. But only one option is needed at the end of a gun barrel – obey! Bishop Stephan had no advance notice of this angry horde and refused to acknowledge their authority. The former clergy arranged to have the real estate agent (!) read the charges to Stephan.

The bishop was charged with misuse of the funds, fornication, and adultery, the same charges brought against him in a court of law in Dresden, ending his career there. Since the same lawyers, Vehse and Marbach, were there in the Dresden court, people should only marvel that these were suddenly charges never before proven. Mrs. Stephan and the primary mistress Louise Guenther both testified.

The mob outside Stephan’s cabin whipped the walls to terrify him, and he felt afraid for his life. He signed the document of accusation, though obtaining a guilty plea through death threats is hardly legal or Biblical.

The next anti-Scriptural step was searching him bodily for any money on him and the cabin for the rest of the money. At the Walther site, the guide showed me the chest where Stephan’s gold was kept. “That would be worth millions today.” The man showed no remorse over stealing a vast amount of money, which was perhaps a mix of the society’s money and the bishop’s. The implication of the tour was – he had it coming to him. Never mentioned – the society was financially strapped from foolish spending, not all of it the bishop’s fault. The former pastors also took money from the fund and that was not consistently recorded or paid back. (Zion)

Stephan was forced to sleep overnight on the ground, another strange concept not addressed in Walther’s Pastoral Theology. He was forced across the river at gunpoint, with only 100 dollars, a few clothes, and a shovel. The mob took all his personal possessions and library. Stealing a library was replayed when Seminex stole the books from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, for their own school, claiming, as one did, “They were our books.” Antinomianism reigns with legalism where Objective Justification is taught.

The trip across the river was probably on a ferry, not in a rowboat. The bishop was dumped in Illinois, sick, with not enough to survive. Future pleas to provide some food were refused. He sued for the return of his property and received almost nothing. The beautiful chalice given to him was kept by Walther and used at every communion service. Thieves often keep trophies to admire.

The lawyer Marbach, on behalf of the Society, interrogated Louise Guenther - after the fact, so the verdict and punishment were first and the facts second. The issue had already been settled in Germany and verified by her cozy position on the ship near Stephan’s cabin, living above him in the same building in St. Louis. Could Marbach and Vehse have traveled for weeks on the same ship and not seen anything amiss, with the bishop’s wife and his children (except one) left behind?

Louise joined the bishop in Illinois about two weeks later. He became the first bishop in Illinois and served as the pastor of a congregation that still exists in the LCMS. He died in Illinois, seven years after Walther’s mob threatened, robbed, and kidnapped him. A rumor lived on that Stephan had gold coins in his cane when he was expelled. The author of Servant of His Word examined the cane and found nothing there. The irony of thinking the bishop escaped with some money – but without his land, cabin, books, and savings – is too rich to ignore.

Not satisfied with this, Walther talked Stephan’s son into giving away the 80 acres in Perryville belonging legally to his father.

The Ninth Commandment.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.

What does this mean?--Answer.

We should fear and love God that we may not craftily seek to get our neighbor's inheritance or house, and obtain it by a show of [justice and] right, etc., but help and be of service to him in keeping it.

---

[1] Servant of the Word, cane story.

 Red Bud, Illinois

Two Charismatic Pietists - The Weaver Messiah and the Wheat Flour Messiah

 Eric Jansson (1808-1850), his family and others left Sweden for freedom in America.

I asked our seminarian to visit Bishop Hill, near Moline, Illinois, which netted me a book called the Wheat Flour Messiah. The parallels with Bishop Martin Stephan are striking. Jansson was a wheat flour salesman.

Both men were poorly educated but charismatic leaders who attracted hundreds of followers and the hostility of the state officials. Stephan was a weaver.

Both were Pietists with extreme views about their holy lives. Their promiscuity was known by their followers but overlooked. Jansson traveled the Swedish countryside and pursued women in the style of Rasputin. Advocating holiness, his followers concluded his mind was pure but his body was adulterous. Traveling with some of his disciples, staying here and there, he became quite notorious.

 Walther did not suddenly discover his bishop's adultery. The Stephanites left Europe because their leader was under house arrest. The outbreak of syphilis among the young women was the cause for rioting, robbing, and deposing Stephan.

Martin Stephan was so active that he contracted syphilis, finding relief from his symptoms by walking late at night with young women and going to spas for medicinal baths. At one he stayed with his mistress but sent his pleading wife home. He installed one young woman in the parsonage and took his favorite mistress along when the Stephanites left for America. The Walther circle knew this but enforced his rigid and often bizarre rule over the followers.

Jansson considered himself the exemplar of the holy, the preacher, the teacher, the hymn-writer, and the catechism author.

Stephan's people had to agree with his exalted notion that the bishop was the Means of Grace, that Europe no longer had the Means of Grace when he left for America. Dissent from that position was punished.

• Jansson founded Bishop Hill, Illinois, in 1846. He forced celibacy on everyone but soon allowed marriage. Cholera and financial troubles set back their "New Jerusalem" and Jansson was shot dead by an angry husband.
• Bishop Stephan took his group to St. Louis and Perryville in 1839. Walther organized a riot, taking the bishop's land, gold, books, and personal possessions. Stephan was forced at gunpoint to cross over to Illinois. His mistress followed. He died in 1846.

Both men left behind historical landmarks, but the Missouri Synod has fabricated its history to hide the cult behavior, the extreme Pietism, and the complicity of the Walther circle. Perryville-Altenburg site is a shrine to the Great Walther. I was shown the chest that held the bishop's gold, with no thought of shame about it being stolen. In fact, the cult accused the bishop of getting away with some of his own gold hidden in his cane, which was false.

Walther was an expert at photoshopping his own history, confessing that Stephan was "a bit of a Pietist." He said that Stephan's marital problems were the fault of his long-suffering wife, who died with all of her children but one, of his disease.

 Walther carried out the plan of Jansson and Stephan, creating his own dogmatics. Jansson burned Luther's works. Walther buried Luther under his pile of publications.

Francis Pieper - Good and Bad. From 2010

Francis Pieper was chosen by Walther to carry the mantle of the Great Prophet, the One Who Explains All.

I bought my set of Pieper around 1987 and studied all three volumes. Pieper was a good introduction to the Two Natures in Christ, although nothing quite like Chemnitz. I also studied Calvinism through the eyes of Pieper, after spending some time on the topic at Notre Dame in the PhD program, where my advisor was a Remonstrant, or Dutch Arminian.

One of the oddities of Upper Midwest Lutheran sects is their eagerness to jump on Luther citations as "worshiping Luther," while they clearly view any criticism of Pieper as blasphemy. No one subscribes to the Weimar edition of Luther, and no one subscribes to anything by Pieper. However, by default the old Syn Conference does have a quia subscription to the Brief Statement and what little they remember of the Dogmatics.

This nonsense cannot be reconciled with the Bible,
Luther, or the Book of Concord.
Jar Jar Webber eats it up and serves it raw.

Pieper Paradox
I struggled to understand how Lutherans could embrace the pox-riddled Church Growth Movement, so I turned to Pieper for more perspective. Here is the great paradox, which unfolds in the quotations below. Pieper could be very good in describing the Means of Grace in Lutheran doctrine and in showing how Calvinism is wrong. However, his advocacy of two justifications contradicts everything said on the the topic of the Holy Spirit working exclusively through the Means of Grace. To put it another way, he contradicts the topic of grace coming to us only through the Means of Grace.

The Pieper quotations address the schizophrenia of the Syn Conference. The ELS, LCMS, and WELS may say the right words about the Means of Grace (although muted and rare these days) but they promote the opposite view, a butchered version of Calvin, in their precious Universal Objective Justification.

Francis Pieper Quotations
"The starting point in presenting the doctrine of the means of grace must be the universal objective reconciliation or justification. This is the procedure of Scripture."
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 105.

"We saw before that Scripture ascribes the forgiveness of sins without reservation to the Word of the Gospel, to Baptism, and to the Lord's Supper. Therefore all means of grace have the vis effectiva, the power to work and to strengthen faith." [Note: Augsburg Confession, V, XIII]
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 108f.

"Also the objection that there is no need of offering and confirming to Christians one and the same forgiveness of sins in several ways betrays an astonishing ignorance. Both Scripture and experience teach that men who feel the weight of their sins find nothing harder to believe than the forgiveness of their sins. Hence repetition of the assurance of the forgiveness of sins in various ways through the means of grace meets a practical need of Christians."
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 114.

"Because saving grace is particular, according to the teaching of the Calvinists, there are no means of grace for that part of mankind to which the grace of God and the merit of Christ do not extend. On the contrary, for these people the means of grace are intended as means of condemnation. Calvin teaches expressly: 'For there is a universal call, through which, by the external preaching of the Word, God invites all, indiscriminately, to come to Him, even those for whom He intends it as a savor of death and an occasion of heavier condemnation' (Institutes, III, 24, 8)."
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 118f.

"But according to the teaching of Calvinism this 'inner illumination' is not brought about through the means of grace; it is worked immediately by the Holy Ghost. Modern Reformed, too, teach this very emphatically. Hodge, for example, says: 'In the work of regeneration all second causes are excluded....Nothing intervenes between the volition of the Spirit and the regeneration of the soul....The infusion of a new life into the soul is the immediate work of the Spirit....The truth (in the case of adults)[that is, the setting forth of the truth of the Gospel through the external Word] attends the work of regeneration, but is not the means by which it is effected." [Hodge, Systematic Theology, II, 634f.]
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 120.

Those who read Fuerbring will find he breathes the spirit of Luther.
He studied and used Luther all the time, and also focused on
Hebrew and Greek Biblical passages.
And - shhh - he was Walther's nephew and knew him well.

Child Victims Partly To Blame Say Catholic Bishop. Different from WELS Sharia Law? LCMS Policy Is To Destroy Evidence

This bishop was found dead  before his testimony was taken -
about his own crimes against children.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/victims_partly_to_blame_in_priest_sex-abuse_cases_syracuse_bishop_testified.html

UPDATE: The bishop issued a public letter in response to this story.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The victims of child-molesting priests are partly to blame for their own abuse, the bishop of Syracuse said in a sworn deposition that revealed his views on the church's sex abuse scandal.

Bishop Robert Cunningham testified in a 2011 deposition in response to a federal lawsuit filed by a man who said a priest in the Syracuse diocese sexually abused him as a child.

The man's lawyer asked Cunningham whether, in the eyes of the church, a child molested by a priest has committed a sin.

"The boy is culpable," Cunningham said Oct. 14, 2011, according to a transcript of the deposition.

His sworn testimony provides rare insight into the thoughts of the highest-ranking Catholic in Syracuse about one of the most troubling chapters in the church's history.

Cunningham believes no child is responsible for being sexually abused, a diocese official said this week. It's unfair to use the deposition to characterize his position otherwise, the official said.

***

I had to add the evil Stephan and the excommunicated Loehe (boo hiss),
insert Knapp, and put a proper burglars's mask on Walther.

GJ - When an authority figure (teacher, doctor, therapist, minister, coach, priest) uses his or her position to take advantage of another person, this excuse if often used. 

According to WELS Sharia law, the woman or girl is always guilty. This is no different from the decadent Roman Catholic policy of protecting "a son of Holy Mother Church." Besides, it is easier to defenestrate and slander a woman than to admit the son of Holy Mother Church is an adulterous scoundrel willing to betray his wife, his children, and his Savior?

The LCMS has never abandoned its policy of lying about the facts, hiding the truth, inventing sainthood stories, and excommunicating victims from its history. Stephan's adultery was the "fault of his wife," according to a confidential statement by CFW Walther, confidentially published in a book with world-wide circulation (Servant of the Word). But Walther organized a mob at a time convenient to CFW rather than confront Bishop Stephan - according to Scripture - with his crimes. How perverted, to blame Mrs. Stephan for her husband spreading syphilis to her and their children, and then to the young women in the cult.

The LCMS cannot even tell the truth about its birth
as a Pietistic cult run by an abusive, dictatorial bishop
who was propped up the the clergy who became Missouri's founding fathers.