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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2017 A Mighty Fortress: American Religion and the Construction of Confessional Adam S. Brasich

Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

A MIGHTY FORTRESS:

AMERICAN RELIGION AND THE CONSTRUCTION

OF

By

ADAM S. BRASICH

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

2017

© Adam S. Brasich Adam S. Brasich defended this dissertation on June 19, 2017. The members of the supervisory committee were:

John Corrigan Professor Directing Dissertation

Michael Ruse University Representative

John Kelsay Committee Member

Michael McVicar Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii

To my parents, with love.

To Zach and Grant, with gratitude.

To Stephen H. Webb, in memory.

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I appreciate all who, in various ways, helped me see this project through to completion. First, I would like to thank my advisor, John Corrigan, for encouraging me to pursue this project and for his help at every stage of my graduate career. Second, I thank the members of my committee –

John Kelsay, Mike McVicar, and Michael Ruse – for their help along the way. An early draft of

Chapter Three was originally a seminar paper for Dr. Kelsay, who always supported my interests concerning theology’s role in American religion. Finally, I particularly would like to thank

Tucker Adkins, Kevin Burton, and Dan Wells, for stimulating conversations on the relationship between faith and responsible historical scholarship. Additionally, I thank the Graduate School for a Dissertation Research Grant, which provided me with the opportunity to travel to the

Midwest for research purposes. Others outside of the FSU community assisted with this dissertation as well. I thank that the staff at Concordia Historical Institute (St. Louis, Missouri), the staff at the Evangelical Lutheran Archives (Mankato, ), Nathan

Strutz, Pastor Doug Tomhave, Dr. Wayne Wagner, Pastor Don Moldstad, Prof. Erling Teigen,

Pastor Gaylin Schmeling, and Pastor Joel Russow for guiding my research and for providing various materials and fruitful conversations. Finally, Phil Barlow’s mentorship throughout my graduate career – and beyond – has been appreciated.

This dissertation was not produced in an academic vacuum. I am thankful to two communities which have provided me with succor and strength during my Southern sojourn.

Faith Lutheran in Tallahassee has been my second home, and it has been a privilege to learn and serve there in various capacities. While there are too many people at Faith to thank by name, I need to single out Phil Biedenbender, whom I met my final year in Tallahassee but provided many stimulating conversation about our shared experiences with Wisconsin Synod

iv Lutheranism that, probably unbeknownst to him, encouraged me during the final stages of this project. Many of the ideas in this dissertation are the result of discussions with him over dinner or in the church parking lot. Also, he agreed to read the entire dissertation manuscript, bless his heart. Additionally, the Sacred Harp community of Lower Alabama provided needed distractions from my academic work. Their friendship and acceptance helped make the South feel like home.

Finally, I am thankful for the dear family and friends who supported me in innumerable ways over the last six years. My parents have been unbelievably generous with financial support during my graduate career, and I will never be able to adequately express my appreciation for them. Alongside my family have been good, old friends who, despite distance, were always there. Nolan Eller joined me “down South” and kept me grounded in reality (and Cajun food).

Zach Rohrbach made the trip to Tallahassee several times, though I suspect he was more interested in Apalachicola oysters than seeing me. Our conversations over the last decade on every subject under the sun have been a constant joy, and his encouragement and support in every aspect of my life is a tremendous blessing. My friendship with Grant Farnsworth has always been a source of adventure, fun, and great memories. I am glad that we have been able to visit with each other as often as we have, and I appreciate his abundant generosity, his tolerance for late night (and lengthy) conversations, and his patient explanation of the story of the Three

Witnesses. Finally, I am grateful to Steve Webb for everything he did for me at Wabash College and afterwards. I would never have pursued this journey if it was not for his guidance, and it saddens me deeply that he is not here to see its fulfillment. He was a dear friend and inspiration and the epitome of a Christian scholar.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... vii Abstract ...... viii

INTRODUCTION: THE , MICHELE BACHMANN, HISTORIANS, AND CONFESSIONAL LUTHERANS ...... 1

1. “THE OF THE LAITY”: THE AND AUTHORITY IN CONFESSIONAL LUTHERANISM ...... 24

2. “GOD’S WORD AND ’S DOCTRINE”: , C. F. W. WALTHER, AND LUTHERAN PRIMITIVISM ...... 79

3. THE LONELY LUTHERAN: AND CONFESSIONAL ECUMENISM...... 133

4. “ PRAYED”: THE DIVINE SERVICE, LUTHERAN , AND AMERICAN ...... 196

5. OF STONE: LUTHERAN AS A CONFESSIONAL STATEMENT ...... 252

CONCLUSION: GOOD FRUIT AND GOOD SEEDS ...... 318

References ...... 328

Biographical Sketch ...... 354

vi LIST OF FIGURES

2.1 C. F. W. Walther’s grave in Concordia Cemetery, St. Louis (photo by the author)...... 132

5.1 The at St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS), Decatur, Indiana (photo by the author). .304

5.2 Grave art with baptismal and eucharistic symbolism at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Decatur, Indiana (photo by the author)...... 305

5.3 The sanctuary of Lutheran Chuch (WELS), Verona, Wisconsin (photo by the author)...... 306

5.4 Altar with the triptych in the background (photo by the author)...... 307

5.5 stained glass window at Resurrection Lutheran Church, Verona, Wisconsin (photo by the author)...... 308

5.6 Note the positioning of the baptismal font in relation to the stained glass window depicting ’s baptism (photo by the author)...... 309

5.7 The relief sculpture at ’s Trinity Chapel in Mankato, Minnesota (photo by the author)...... 310

5.8 The trinitarian triangles in Trinity Chapel’s guard railing (photo by the author)...... 311

5.9 Note the three levels of steps towards the altar (photo by the author)...... 312

5.10 Trinity Chapel’s triptych altar (photo by the author)...... 313

5. 11The exterior of the Chapel of the Christ, College, New Ulm, Minnesota (photo by the author)...... 314

5.12 The Chapel of the Christ’s sanctuary (photo by the author)...... 315

5.13 The chancel at the Chapel of the Christ (photo by the author)...... 316

5.14 The fifth cross on the mensa (photo by the author)...... 317

vii ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on the beliefs and practices of confessional Lutherans in North America

(particularly those of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran

Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod) as a form of religious conservative intellectual and material production. Confessional Lutheranism distinguishes itself from other variations of conservative through its appeals to sixteenth century sources of religious authority and the construction of historical memory, cultural practices, and material culture. Confessional

Lutherans view American religion through the lens of the Book of Concord, which, since it derives authority from the eternal Word of God, is equally applicable to twenty-first century

America as it was to in 1580. Since the Lutheran Confessions simply rearticulate the

Bible, theology cannot progress beyond the statements made in the documents. Therefore, confessional Lutherans have judged American religion and found it wanting based upon sixteenth century standards of orthodoxy. The impact of this confessionalism is not solely theological or intellectual. Rather, it deeply impacts religious culture and practice. , hymnals, and church architecture are defined not only by orthodoxy but by their difference from contemporary evangelical trends. As much as confessional Lutheranism is positively defined by quia subscription to the Confessions, negatively it is defined by its suspicion towards conservative American evangelicals.

Through a close analysis of the Book of Concord’s role in confessional Lutheranism, theological critiques of evangelical approaches to worship and emotion, controversies regarding ecumenical participation, and descriptions of material culture in the form of hymnals and church buildings, this study describes how confessional Lutheranism is constructed in relation to other versions of American . While confessional Lutheranism’s theological isolationism

viii may seem to sequester the community within an intellectual ghetto, confessional Lutherans are very aware of their religious surroundings and react to them. This dissertation also shows how this community’s strict adherence to their Confessions relates to American Protestant questions of authority. The Confessions’ role as a theological norm separates them from American evangelicals, who have more nebulous sources of authority. Finally, this study demonstrates the continued importance of theological orthodoxy in American religious conservatism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Confessional Lutherans separate themselves religiously from conservative evangelicals based upon theological principles. This demonstrates that one cannot reduce religious conservatism to voting patterns and political analysis. Theology continues to matter.

ix INTRODUCTION

THE ANTICHRIST, MICHELE BACHMANN, HISTORIANS, AND CONFESSIONAL LUTHERANISM

On June 27, 2011, Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann, darling of the Tea

Party Movement, announced her campaign for the White House. Representing the Sixth District, a deeply conservative district that encompassed the Twin Cities’ northern and western suburbs and defied the state’s politically progressive reputation, since 2007, Bachmann had established a notably conservative record, speaking out against Obamacare, same-sex marriage, , the auto industry bailout, and other issues, and, brandishing her profile, she appeared frequently on

Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Therefore, given the rise of Alaska’s Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential election and the former governor’s decision to abstain from the 2012 race, it was only natural for Bachmann to throw her hat into the ring and claim the Tea Party’s standard. However, some cynics crowed that her presidential campaign really began six days earlier. On June 21, Rep. Bachmann and her husband Marcus, a Christian counselor, quietly resigned their memberships from Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater.

While the Bachmanns had been attending a non-denominational church for the past two years and had only now made their church switch official, campaign journalists jumped at the story. Media outlets, such as CNN and The Atlantic, discovered that, for ten years, the

Bachmanns belonged to a church that declared that the papacy was the Antichrist.1 Salem

Lutheran Church is affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), a nation- wide denomination based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with approximately 400,000 members. Due

1 Joshua Green, “Michele Bachmann’s Church Says the is the Antichrist,” The Atlantic, July 13, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/michele-bachmanns-church-says-the-pope-is-the- antichrist/241909/; Eric Marrapodi, “Michele Bachmann officially leaves church,” CNN.com, July 15, 2011, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/15/michele-bachmann-officially-leaves-her-church/. 1 to the synod’s fidelity to the Book of Concord, a sixteenth century compendium of Lutheran theology, the church body maintained Martin Luther’s identification of the Antichrist with the papacy. However, the WELS did not view Luther’s teaching as best contextualized as

Reformation-era polemics that, for ecumenism’s sake, ought to be abandoned. Rather, as Lyle

W. Lange, a Wisconsin Synod systematic theologian, wrote in 2005, “It is the prophecies of

Scripture that identify for us the papacy as the Antichrist. What the papacy has said and done is what Paul said the Antichrist would say and do. Thus the papacy is the Antichrist. This is not a mere subjective opinion or judgment of history. The Bible identifies the Antichrist for us.”2 On its website, the WELS provides a statement concerning its position on the Antichrist filled with scriptural references as well as passages from the Lutheran Confessions, confirming the synod’s position as both the biblical and historically Lutheran position.3

Regardless of the doctrine’s long history within Lutheranism, news reports about

Bachmann belonging to a church claiming that the pope is the Antichrist could hardly appeal to conservative Catholic voters who would be a crucial component of any winning coalition in the upcoming Iowa caucuses. Damage control commenced. Michele Bachmann foreswore belief in the tenet and referenced a 2006 debate in which, when questioned on the doctrine, she declared that “It’s abhorrent, it’s religious bigotry. I love Catholics, I’m a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the anti-Christ, that’s absolutely false.”4 Bachmann’s theological ignorance aside, the WELS likewise had a problem. An otherwise obscure, largely invisible denomination suddenly had been thrust into the national limelight over charges of anti-

2 Lyle W. Lange, God So Loved the World: A Study of Christian Doctrine (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2005), 594. 3 “Antichrist,” WELS.net. https://wels.net/about-wels/what-we-believe/doctrinal-statements/antichrist. 4 Daniel Burke, “Michele Bachmann’s former church explains pope ‘anti-Christ’ claims,” Washington Post, July 15, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/michele-bachmanns-former-church-explains-popeanti- christ-claims/2011/07/15/gIQAzMG7FI_story.html?utm_term=.16ac6b646da3. 2 Catholicism. Joel Hochmuth, the synod’s communications director, told a reporter that “it's not something you're going to hear preached from our every Sunday.”5 Though the synod massaged the position, they did not back down. Instead, they tried to educate the public concerning their position. Mark Schroeder, the president of the WELS, wrote an opinion piece for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the synod’s hometown paper. Schroeder declared, that

“WELS does hold to the historic Lutheran position that the papacy fits the biblical characteristics of the anti-Christ. We do this without reservation and with no apologies.

We believe that biblical doctrines cannot be tempered by political correctness or modified to align them with changing culture or public opinion.”6 After identifying the Bible as the source of all Lutheran doctrine, he mentioned that “WELS is also a ‘confessional’ Lutheran church, which means that we hold to the teachings of the Lutheran Confessions because they are a clear and accurate articulation of biblical truth. These -era writings identified the fundamental ways in which the Roman had departed from the teachings of the Bible.”7 While noting that this does not mean that Wisconsin Synod Lutherans believe that Catholics are destined for hell (“we rejoice that in the Roman Catholic Church there are many people who hold to a saving faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior”), Schroeder ended by arguing that “this [is not] a view peculiar to WELS; it has been the historic position of the Lutheran church for almost 500 years - a position still held by confessional Lutheran church bodies around the world.”8

Ultimately, Schroeder defended his synod by claiming continuity with biblical doctrine rearticulated in the Lutheran Confessions.

5 Green. 6 Mark G. Schroeder, “WELS and Bachmann are not anti-Catholic,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, July 19, 2011, http://archive.jsonline.com/news/opinion/125847158.html. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 3 This episode is barely a footnote in American political history. Bachmann’s campaign sputtered in the Iowa caucuses, but it had nothing to do with her connections with the Wisconsin

Synod. However, the incident is interesting for (at least) two . First, Michele Bachmann did not retreat from any of her controversial political positions, and she did not distance herself from her husband’s application of reparative therapy to homosexual clients at his counseling clinic, but apparently the WELS and its position on the Antichrist were sufficiently toxic for

Bachmann to denounce it.9 While political expediency might well have been involved, the move also speaks to boundaries of acceptability within political religious conservatism, and the WELS found itself on the outside. Second, nobody knew what to do about the WELS. After years of apparent benign neglect, Bachmann knew that she had to run from it, but journalists were clueless concerning this medium-sized Lutheran denomination, the third largest in the United

States. In Joshua Green’s article for The Atlantic, he comically recounts his attempts to contact

WELS officials, detailing how a pastor hung up the phone on him and finally he was able to get ahold of the synod’s communication director. Sociologist (and Lutheran) Peter Berger wrote an article for The American Interest sarcastically admitting that “I have some empathy with the chutzpah of an individual sitting in Milwaukee in effect excommunicating the Roman pontiff….

I like the idea that there are 390,000 people whose religious center is not Rome, not

Constantinople, not even Canterbury, but Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That city on the western shore of Lake Michigan may no longer be the Beer Capital of the World, since the Miller company was bought by South African Breweries. But for more than a quarter million people Milwaukee is the

9 Tony Kennedy, “Marcus Bachmann says his clinics not anti-gay,” Star-Tribune, July 15, 2011, http://www.startribune.com/marcus-bachmann-says-his-clinics-not-anti-gay/125610083/?c=y&page=1; Brian Montopoli, “Michele Bachmann’s husband: My clinic does gay-to-straight therapy, but it’s not our ,” CBS News, July 15, 2011, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michele-bachmanns-husband-my-clinic-does-gay-to-straight- therapy-but-its-not-our-agenda/. 4 headquarters of the Only True Church.”10 The WELS’s position on the Antichrist was a moment for quizzical looks and hilarity.

Historians of American religion have something in common with Michele Bachmann – they do not know what to do with Lutherans. Mark Noll, describing American Lutheranism, wrote: “At first glance, then, Lutherans may look like an exotic growth on the American landscape. From the angle of the social scientists, however, a very different picture emerges: in demographic terms, Lutherans seem, in fact, remarkably unremarkable.”11 As such, Lutherans are a blip on the larger historiography of American religion. In his grand survey of antebellum

American Christianity, Noll mentions Lutherans only as constituting one of the “failed alternatives” to Scottish commonsense realism and the “Reformed, literal hermeneutic” that reigned over Protestantism.12 Similarly Lutherans seventeen pages out of 511 in E. Brooks

Holifield’s Theology in America.13 More recently, Molly Worthen’s Apostles of , which successfully integrates Mennonites, conservative Wesleyans, and evangelicals-turned-Catholics into the historiography of American religious conservatism, devotes a single paragraph to

Lutheranism (to explain why it did not appeal to evangelicals searching for a weightier tradition) and analyzes only one noteworthy Lutheran figure, (who later became

Catholic).14 As L. DeAne Lagerquist has written, “historians of American religion treat

10 Peter Berger, “Is the Only True Church in Milwaukee?” The American Interest, August 24, 2011, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2011/08/24/is-the-only-true-church-in-milwaukee/. 11 Mark A. Noll, “The Lutheran Difference,” , February 1992, accessed May 8, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/article/1992/02/004-the-lutheran-difference. 12 Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 402-421. 13 E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in the America: Christian Thought from the Age of the to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 397-414. 14 Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 82, 247-248. 5 Lutherans as a benign exception to their interpretation of the whole.”15 Given the wide breadth of the current historiography of American religion, it is easier to integrate snake handlers and practitioners of Vodou into wider historical narratives than it is for Midwestern Lutherans.

If Lutherans in the Midwest are historiographically difficult and, perhaps, boring, one of the reasons is that they have been domesticated by entertainers, historians, and Lutherans themselves. Garrison Keillor’s humor provides a case in point. The fictional Lutheran mecca of

Lake Wobegon is weird and ostensibly comical because it sees itself as normal. As Keillor droned for decades, the town is a place “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” Its citizens are quirky, but they are NPR quirky.

Keillor’s monotonic monologues give a false sense of normalcy to the Midwest, which the region readily accepts to its historiographical disadvantage. Historian Andrew R. L. Cayton argued that “Throughout the twentieth century, Midwesterners nurtured a culture of the lowest common denominator, a way of life based on highlighting what people share, rather than the myriad ways in which they diverge…. They are all Americans; they are not unique

Midwesterners. More than anything else, they want to be thought of as normal and respectable.”16 He later noted that “Regional identity never took root in the region. It never became a significant way of thinking. Indeed, since the burden of life in the Midwest has been to deny any kind of difference, the whole notion of asserting a unique or peculiar configuration of people and environment contradicts its unarticulated sense of regional identity.”17 Midwestern

15 L. DeAne Lagerquist, “The Lutheran Difference: What More Than Nice?” in Philip Barlow and Mark Silk, eds., Religion and Public Life in the Midwest: America’s Common Denominator? (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 83. 16 Andrew R. L. Cayton, “The Anti-Region: Place and Identity in the History of the American Midwest,” in The Identity of the American Midwest: Essays on Regional History, ed. Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Gray (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 150-151. 17 Ibid., 158. 6 normalcy is a social construct carefully protected by the region’s residents.18 However, this impedes historical studies of the Midwest, since regional studies rely upon differences and a sense of separation from other areas, both of which are denied by Midwesterners.19

Historiographically, this has resulted in the Midwest becoming what Jon K. Lauck labeled “the lost region.”20 Since most Lutherans live in the Midwest, they have been displaced in the process.

Ironically, the historiography of Lutheranism has also contributed to its subject’s lack of integration into American religious history. Lutheran history has primarily been an internal conversation amongst Lutherans. Myriad denominational histories were written narrating the rise and fall of seminaries, synodical organizations, youth leagues, and other institutions.21 However, the most prominent surveys of American Lutheranism, such as E. Clifford Nelson’s Lutheranism in North America, 1914-1970 and The Lutherans in North America charted a teleological path

18 This includes the claim that Midwestern accents are non-existent but rather are neutral and copied by broadcasters in order to be devoid of regional identification. Edward McClelland addresses this in How to Speak Midwestern (Cleveland: Belt Press, 2016). 19 For excellent historical studies that critically examine the creation of the Midwest, see Nicole Etcheson, The Emerging Midwest: Upland Southerners and the Political Culture of the Old Northwest, 1787-1861 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Jon Gjerde, The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997); and Bethel Saler, The Settlers’ Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America’s Old Northwest (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). The history of the “Old Northwest” (such as Saler’s work) has become a particularly useful point of analysis concerning borderlands. 20 See Jon K. Lauck, The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2013). The major exception to this claim is the urban Midwest, such as Detroit or . For instance, see Lila Corwin Berman, Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Tobias Brinkman, Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012); John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); and Mark T. Mulder, Shades of White Flight: Evangelical Congregations and Urban Departure (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015). While these studies are necessary and valuable, the emphasis on urban rather than rural religion privileges the social and social religion over conservative religions. By focusing on labor unions and the working class, attention naturally is given to liberal religious concerns that connect with social activism. 21 For instance, see W. Kent Gilbert, Commitment to Unity: A History of the Lutheran Church in America (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), and Mark A. Granquist, The Augustana Story: Shaping Lutheran Identiy in North America (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2008). 7 amongst North American Lutherans towards church unity.22 Ethnic, cultural, theological, and institutional barriers gradually were being broken down, and Lutheran unity was an inevitability.

While there were recalcitrant Lutherans (such as those in the Wisconsin and Missouri ) who refused to participate in ecumenical efforts, Lutheranism’s teleology was a foregone conclusion. Conservative, anti-unionist Lutherans were outliers to the larger narrative. To that end, American Lutheranism’s historiography, until recently, has been one of the last great bastions of consensus history.23 Emphasizing overcoming differences and growing

Americanization, Lutheran history mirrored Midwestern self-narratives. However, the field of

American religious history has moved in a different direction, abandoning both consensus history and denominational history. Therefore, American Lutheranism has largely been left behind by American religious historiography.

This dissertation seeks to remedy the situation by focusing on the outliers that falsify the consensus narrative – confessional Lutherans, a conservative subculture of American

Lutheranism whose members are found primarily in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, though other, smaller and equally conservative synod and church bodies exist. According to denominational statistics accumulated over the past few years, whereas the liberal, “mainline” Evangelical

Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) claimed 3,863,133 members, the Lutheran Church-

Missouri Synod tallied 2,196,788 members, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod counted

22 E. Clifford Nelson, Lutheranism in North America, 1914-1970 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1972), and E. Clifford Nelson, ed., The Lutherans in North America, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1975). 23 Thankfully, Mark Granquist’s 2015 survey of North American Lutheranism challenges the previous historiography by emphasizing differences and the difficulties arising from church union attempts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Conflict is a more central theme in Granquist’s narrative than it is in Nelson’s. See Mark Granquist, Lutherans in America: A New History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015). 8 380,728 members, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod hovers around 20,000 members.24

Together, these conservative Lutheran church bodies amount to over half the size of the ELCA and approximately a third of American Lutherandom. This is not an insubstantial part of the population.25

Confessional Lutherans are united by their attitude towards the Book of Concord, which, published in Germany in 1580, organized and codified ten confessional statements that defined

Lutheran theology. Unlike other Protestant traditions, new confessions of faith have not found widespread acceptance within Lutheranism. Indeed, one’s status as a conservative or liberal depends upon one’s relationship with the Lutheran Confessions.26 While within global

Lutheranism there are a variety of views towards the Confessions, the North American landscape is divided primarily between those who subscribe to the Book of Concord because (quia) they properly rearticulate biblical teachings and those who subscribe to the Confessions insofar as

(quatenus) the documents correlate with scripture.27 Those who favor quia subscription are referred to as “confessional Lutherans.”

The categorization places the historian in a bind, since, if conservatives are

“confessional” because they adhere to the Book of Concord, then the corollary is that liberals are

“non-confessional” or “anti-confessional” because of their more ambiguous and critical

24 “ELCA Facts,” http://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/ELCA-Facts; “LCMS Fact Sheet”, November 2014, file:///C:/Users/Adam/Downloads/2014_LCMS_Fact_Sheet_Single_Update.pdf; “WELS By The Numbers,” http://www.wels.net/about-wels/wels-numbers. 25 In comparison, there are 2.1 million Anabaptists (including Mennonites, , , and other subgroups) worldwide, and they have merited a deservedly rich, impressive historiography. See “World Directory,” Mennonite World Conference, https://mwc-cmm.org/article/world-directory. 26 Within the theological literature of Lutheranism, the terms “Book of Concord” and “the Lutheran Confessions” are synonymous, and this dissertation does likewise. 27 This will be discussed in Chapter One. Concerning varieties of subscriptions to the Lutheran Confessions in North America and their role within American Lutheranism, see Charles P. Arand, Testing the Boundaries: Windows to Lutheran Identity (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995); Paul P. Kuenning, The Rise and Fall of American Lutheran (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988); and John P. Maxfield, ed., The American Book of Concord: A Sesquicentennial Celebration, The Pieper Lectures, vol. 6 (St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute and The Luther Academy, 2003). 9 relationship with the documents. The scholar is forced to wade into theological waters, utilizing polemical terminology that distinguishes the orthodox from the heterodox. This is regrettable but inevitable. This dissertation uses the term “confessional Lutheranism,” first, in order to cohere with the existing historiography of Lutheranism, but also, more importantly, because strict subscription and adherence to the Confessions sharply distinguishes members of the Missouri,

Wisconsin, and Evangelical Lutheran Synods from other Lutheran denominations.

Whereas liberal Lutherans value the Confessions, they do not accept them as the ultimate articulation of contemporary Lutheran theology. ELCA theologian Carl E. Braaten wrote that

“The confessions possess hermeneutical significance for us because they act like a signpost or compass.”28 In other words, the Confessions provide theologians with intellectual bearings for their creative work. Braaten argued that “When Lutheran exegetes ask what the confessions can do for them in their exegetical tasks, the answer is that they provide a map for their exegetical explorations through the Scriptures. They are told that this map has been used before and has proved itself helpful to previous generations. They in turn are expected to check up on the map, to see if it conforms to their actual findings.”29 While Braaten grants the Book of Concord a place of respect and prestige within Lutheranism, note that, for him, the Confessions do not end the theological conversation. Rather, the theologian “see[s] if it conforms to their actual findings” in their scripture studies. The door is opened for disagreement with various points of the Confessions if the situation arises. The Confessions’ claims concerning the Antichrist are case in point and illustrate the divergent attitudes towards the doctrinal standards. Whereas the

Wisconsin Synod is obliged to stand by Martin Luther’s identification of the pope as the

Antichrist because he said it in the , a confessional document, the ELCA does

28 Carl E. Braaten, Principles of Lutheran Theology, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 42. 29 Ibid., 42. 10 not. ELCA theologian Kathryn A. Kleinhans wrote that “many of us would read that passage not as dogma but as a reflection of the historical circumstances of the papacy in the early sixteenth century without thinking that we were thereby rejecting the Confessions or their authority.”30

Thus, from a historical perspective it would be improper to claim that liberal Lutherans neglect the Lutheran Confessions. For them, the Confessions are the starting point, but they are not absolute, and the boundaries they present are permeable.

In contrast, confessional Lutherans accept the Book of Concord because it rearticulates biblical doctrine. According to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s official doctrinal summary,

“As orthodox, confessional Lutherans, we embrace as our primary confessions of faith the

Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church contained in the Book of Concord of

1580…. We accept these Confessions, not in so far as but because they agree with Scripture, and we believe that they are a correct exposition of the teaching of God’s Word.”31 The Missouri

Synod agrees, confessing in their still binding 1932 Brief Statement that “We accept as our confessions all the symbols contained in the Book of Concord of the year 1580.”32 Additionally,

“Since the Christian Church cannot make doctrines, but can and should simply profess the doctrine revealed in Holy Scripture, the doctrinal decisions of the symbols are binding upon the conscience not because our Church has made them nor because they are the outcome of doctrinal controversies, but only because they are the doctrinal decisions of Holy Scripture itself.”33 In other words, the doctrines of the Confessions are the doctrines of scripture. Due to that equivalence, rejecting the Confessions is rejecting the Bible. There is no room for equivocating

30 Kathryn A. Kleinhans, “Sources of Authority in the Lutheran Tradition: Back to the Future,” The Journal of Lutheran Ethics, September 2011, https://www.elca.org/JLE/Articles/190. 31 We Believe, Teach, and Confess (Mankato, MN: Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 1992), 14. 32 Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1932), 21. 33 Ibid., 21. 11 on confessional theology through historical contextualization as illustrated by Braaten or

Kleinhans. While the Brief Statement notes that “The [confessional] obligation does not extend to historical statements, ‘purely exegetical questions,’ and other matters not belonging to the doctrinal content of the symbols,” two pages prior to this disclaimer the Brief Statement confesses that “As to the Antichrist we teach that the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures concerning the Antichrist…have been fulfilled in the Pope of Rome and his dominion.”34 While room for historical contextualization exists, it is minimal and infrequently utilized. Therefore, confessional Lutheranism applies the Book of Concord in a dissimilar manner from liberal

Lutheranism, resulting in a radically different religious culture.

Historians have not ignored confessional Lutherans but have largely focused on perceived misbehavior. Reacting against earlier hagiography, studies focusing on confessional

Lutheranism have been negative in tone. In many cases, the scholars authoring these books are members of confessional Lutheran synods who disagree with the direction taken by their church body. Mary Todd’s Authority Vested is a tightly argued description of debates about authority within the Missouri Synod over its 150 year history, particularly as they have related to women’s issues.35 However, her position to the church, which elsewhere she has labeled the “Misery

Synod,” is quite clear, and her tone is negative towards the synod’s conservative hierarchy.36 In essence, she argues that the synod’s position towards female ministers is ill-informed and theologically haphazard. James C. Burkee’s Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod takes a similarly critical tone.37 Burkee is a Missouri Synod member, professor of political science at the

34 Ibid., 22, 20. 35 Mary Todd, Authority Vested: A Story of Identity and Change in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999). 36 Mary Todd, “The Curious Case of the Missouri Synod,” in Lutherans Today: American Lutheran Identity in the 21st Century, edited by Richard Cimino (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 26. 37 James C. Burkee, Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict That Changed American Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). 12 synod’s Concordia University-Wisconsin, and self-professed Republican. In his book, he deftly ties the conservatism advocated by the synod hierarchy in the 1970s with political conservatism, illuminating the willfully forgotten role of renegade Herman Otten’s Christian News in solidifying Missouri Synod conservatism. Ultimately, Burkee narrates the tale of the Missouri

Synod’s controversies as a tragedy in which ultra-conservatives won the day with over-zealous rhetoric that permanently damaged the church, though he offers little evidence for that last point except for a recent decline in membership. For both studies, the climax is the conservative

“takeover” of the Missouri Synod in relation to the controversy, in which the majority of professors and students at in St. Louis walked out in protest to the leadership of synod president J. A. O. Preus and accusations of false teachings hurled at the seminary by conservatives.38

Both Todd and Burkee echo E. Clifford Nelson’s frustrations with the Missouri Synod, which boiled over into his survey histories of Lutheranism. Nelson’s The Lutherans in North

America was published in 1975, and so Nelson was able to include the conservatives’ victories at synodical conferences in his narrative. His judgment on the matter was hardly subtle. Describing the 1973 Missouri synod convention, Nelson wrote: “American church historians look at the modernist-fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s and the current internal conflict in

Catholicism as evidences of the monumental furor capable of being gendered by theological and ecclesiastical differences, but neither of these episodes matched the spiritual carnage that took place at what some observers called ‘the Second Battle of .’”39 Discussing the

38 See James E. Adams, Preus of Missouri and the Great Lutheran Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977); John H. Tietjen, Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional Conflict (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990); and Paul A. Zimmermann, A Seminary in Crisis: The Inside Story of the Preus Fact Finding Committee (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007). 39 Nelson, The Lutherans in North America, 531 (emphasis in the original). 13 reaction to the crucial conservative victory in New Orleans, in which the moderate, incumbent synodical president was defeated and Concordia Seminary’s faculty was condemned by the convention as being too liberal, Nelson claims that “the reaction of the Christian world, apart from those churches sympathetic to an untinctured fundamentalism, was one of stunned dismay and disbelief.”40 Later, the historian asks in the spirit of lamentation, “Could the present (1973) polarization in Missouri have been avoided? Would the problem of organization unity for the whole of American Lutheranism have been nearer solution?”41 In Nelson’s account, confessional

Lutherans were villains since they impeded progress towards Lutheran unity. This is indicative of the negative role of confessional Lutheranism within historiographies of both Lutheranism and

American religion, when it appears at all.

This dissertation broadens scholarly understandings of confessional Lutheranism by profiling the beliefs and practices of confessional Lutherans in North America as a form of religious conservative intellectual and material production. Confessional Lutheranism distinguishes itself from other variations of conservative Protestantism through its appeals to sixteenth century sources of religious authority and the construction of historical memory, cultural practices, and material culture. While they may share similar politics with their conservative Baptist or nondenominational evangelical neighbors, theologically and culturally confessional Lutherans look askance at them. They may vote together, but they will not commune or pray with them. This makes them historiographically difficult, as confessional

Lutherans’ conservatism blends in with other forms of religious conservatism, but their separatism has prevented them thus far from being fully integrated into a broader narrative. The difference rests in the tradition’s confessionalism. Confessional Lutherans view American

40 Ibid., 534. 41 Ibid., 535. 14 religion through the lens of the Book of Concord, which, since they believe that it derives authority from the eternal Word of God, is equally applicable to twenty-first century America as it was to Germany in 1580. Since the Lutheran Confessions simply rearticulate the Bible, theology cannot progress beyond the statements made in the documents, since that would imply that the Bible is insufficient and lacks clarity. Therefore, confessional Lutherans, since Martin

Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, and the Saxon immigrants landed in Missouri in 1839, have judged

American religion and found it wanting based upon sixteenth century standards of orthodoxy.

While Lutheran theology and the Confessions themselves admit that the documents theoretically possess secondary status in relation to the Bible, functionally, as a pristine rearticulation of the

Word, the distinction between scripture and confession is permeable. The impact of this confessionalism, of course, is not solely theological or intellectual. Rather, it deeply impacts religious culture and practice. Liturgy, hymnals, and church architecture are defined not only by orthodoxy but also by their difference from contemporary evangelical trends. As much as confessional Lutheranism is positively defined by quia subscription to the Confessions, negatively it is defined by its suspicion towards conservative American evangelicals.

The role of confessionalism within American Protestantism has been emphasized by historian D. G. Hart, who argued that American Protestantism has been divided between confessionalist and Pietist-influenced (or populist) camps.42 Whereas the Pietists emphasized revivalism and conversion experiences, confessionalists emphasized catechesis, , and tradition. In other words, confessional Protestants utilize different sources of authority than non- confessional Protestants. If, as historian Molly Worthen argues, a vacuum of authority exists

42 See D. G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002). 15 within American evangelicalism due to , confessions fill the void.43 Though Hart’s bifurcation of confessional versus Pietist Protestants is, perhaps, too simplistic and theologically advantageous for confessional Protestants like Hart (who places the blame for evangelicalism’s perceived anti-intellectualism on Pietism), Hart does historians a service by highlighting confessionalism as a factor which explains variation within conservative Protestantism in the

United States. Therefore, it behooves historians to analyze how confessionalism is constructed.

Not all confessional are the same, which is evidenced by confusion caused by Lutherans amongst evangelicals. In 2011, Reformed minister Kevin De Young, in his popular blog promoting confessional Reformed theology (“Young, Restless, and Reformed”), asked the question “What’s Up With Lutherans?” De Young wondered

where are they? I’m looking for help from those of you out there who know the Lutheran world better than I do. I look around at what seems vibrant in evangelicalism and see lots of and Presbyterians. I see a lot of folks and a growing number of Anglicans. I see non-denominational guys aplenty…. But I don’t see many Lutherans. I don’t know of Lutherans speaking at the leading conferences. I don’t know of many popular books written by Lutherans. I don’t know of church planting movements among Lutherans. I know lots of people who look up to Martin Luther, but I don’t see the influence of Lutherans. I’m genuinely curious to know why the big tent of conservative, confessional evangelicalism doesn’t have more Lutherans.44

DeYoung, part of the “New Calvinist” revival, was oblivious to the rationale behind the lack of

Lutheran participation in ecumenical evangelical conferences and dialogues. From his Reformed perspective, confessional Protestantism meant hearkening back to the theology of the

Reformation (broadly defined) in opposition to both liberal theology and the “emergent church” movement within evangelicalism. However, from a Lutheran standpoint, confessionalism meant

43 In Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen argues that the history of twentieth century American evangelicalism can be narrating through the lens of questions of theological authority. Since Protestants disagree on interpretations of the Bible, which, theologically speaking, is the ultimate authority for doctrine, evangelicals have sought authority through other means, such as science, apologetics, or appeals to tradition. 44 Kevin De Young, “What’s Up With Lutherans?”, The Gospel Coalition, June 23, 2011, https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2011/06/23/whats-up-with-lutherans/. 16 something else, as DeYoung discovered when he interviewed Concordia Publishing House senior editor and Missouri Synod pastor Paul McCain. Asked if confessional Lutherans considered themselves evangelical, McCain responded, “I do not think that most Lutherans consider themselves to be American Evangelicals. We tend to think of ourselves first, and foremost, simply as Lutheran Christians. I say in light of the fact that conservative

Lutherans do have a single book by which they can identify themselves, doctrinally, we find trying to nail down precisely what ‘Evangelicalism’ is a bit like an exercise in nailing jello to a wall, and that kind of gives us the heebie-jeebies.”45 McCain explained Lutheran distinctiveness by pointing to the Book of Concord, which lacks a parallel within Reformed theology.46

Confessional Lutheranism is not only a foreign world for historians of American religion but also for evangelicals themselves, and thus it provides fertile grounds for historical exploration.

The present study will analyze Lutheranism by illuminating its theological basis while also highlighting the material means through which its doctrines are mediated and reinforced.

Confessional Lutheranism is guided by its strict interpretation of the Book of Concord as an authoritative theological norm. These synods’ confessionalism is constructed through intellectual and material production as they seek to differentiate themselves from American evangelicalism.

While confessional Lutheranism’s theological isolationism may seem to sequester the community within an intellectual ghetto, confessional Lutherans are very aware of their religious surroundings and react to it. If orthodoxy is judged by the Bible and the Confessions, orthopraxy is determined simultaneously by its reflection of distinctively Lutheran doctrine and its rejection

45 Kevin De Young, “Those Dern Lutherans: An Interview with Paul T. McCain,” The Gospel Coalition, July 21, 2011, https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2011/07/21/those-dern-lutherans-an-interview-with-paul-t- mccain. 46 While Reformed theology has many confessions, they are not codified in a single book that defines that entire tradition. Also, while there have been no new authoritative Lutheran confessions since 1580, post-Reformation confessions exist within the Reformed tradition. 17 of and practice. For Lutherans, negative definition is a theological principle, and it is reflected through polemical critiques of evangelicals, apologetics for Lutheran liturgical practices, the construction of hymnals, and even church designs.47

Confessionalism is constructed. It is both intellectual and material, and the two are intertwined. The recent historiography focusing on material culture bears this out. David Morgan argues that “belief is mediated” through visual culture.48 Mediation through sight is communal, is “seeing is a social medium, the means by which relations of power are arrayed and maintained among human beings.”49 Colleen McDannell agrees, arguing that text-centric studies of religion and American religious history have been biased towards a presumed Puritan logocentrism.

However, materiality does not negate theology. Rather, as Lauren F. Winner argued in A

Cheerful and Comfortable Faith, material culture reflects theology. In her study, Winner argued that “Virginia gentry’s was a religion at ease with the world, and it helped the gentry articulate and sustain its own comfortable place in that world.”50 Therefore, while artifacts from the Virginian gentry do not bespeak to a religious separation from the world and thus have given rise to interpretations of religious laxity, they reflect Anglican theology, which “was a religion at ease with the world; it did not demand that practitioners be unsettled, nor did it urge

47 Discussing the social theory of Niklas Luhmann, John Corrigan writes that “social groups create and maintain collective identity by defining themselves in relation to other groups, and especially by saying what they are not. They push off from other groups in defining themselves. We could extend that approach by stating that groups sometimes behave as if they lack a clear collective self-understanding; that is, they lack a fully formed core identity that they can marshal in a positive fashion against a field of other groups. They accordingly define themselves in relation to other groups, define themselves negatively, by differentiating – in some cases to a great degree – from other groups. Identity is built through such negative definition” (John Corrigan, Emptiness: Feeling Christian in America [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015]). 48 David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 8. 49 David Morgan, The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 21. 50 Lauren F. Winner, A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 2. 18 them to break from the world.”51 Material culture thus cannot be divorced from theology with leading to gross misinterpretations of historical subjects.52 The study of theology and material culture work in tandem, as the structure of this dissertation will demonstrate.

This dissertation focuses on how confessionalism within an American Lutheran context is constructed. In order to understand confessional Lutheranism, one must understand the role of the Lutheran Confessions. Chapter One argues that the Book of Concord maintains a canonically ambiguous relationship with the Bible as an authoritative theological source. Since confessional

Lutherans claim that doctrine does not progress or develop, biblical doctrines are eternal data awaiting systematization. Since the confessions in the Book of Concord, from a conservative

Lutheran perspective, simply rearticulate biblical doctrine, the book gains derivative inerrancy from scripture, which itself is inerrant. Because scripture and its doctrine is timeless, the

Confessions likewise become timeless. Therefore, they are applicable in all contexts, as is illustrated through Missouri Synod founder C. F. W. Walther’s application of sixteenth century

German theological polemics to Methodists and other evangelicals on the western frontier.

Additionally, the Confessions, while calcified in their original 1580 state, are also living documents, as demonstrated through an analysis of different “explanations” addended to synodical editions of Luther’s Small Catechism which communicate denominational concerns to students through the text. Finally, use of the Small Catechism as a basis for the Divine Service further illustrates the perceived timeless of the Confessions.

51 Ibid., 3. 52 For instance, Winner argues that scholarship that deemed Virginian gentry Anglicans to be religiously lax “is based on a limited view in which only religion that mandates a sharp break with the world counts as such. This may have been the view of clerics in Puritan New England and of the Baptist revivalists who stormed Virginia in the second half of the eighteenth century, and it may have become equally orthodox among some historians of American religion. But religion has always come in a more quotidian form too, and it is not any less ‘religious’ as a result – just religious in a different key” (Ibid., 4). In other words, by misinterpreting or ignoring Anglican theology, historians created a mistaken narrative. 19 Chapter Two narrates the arrival of confessional Lutheranism on America’s western frontier in the nineteenth century within the context of primitivist and restorationist tendencies in

American Christianity. While Lutherans arrived in the New World as early as the seventh century, modern confessional Lutheranism is largely derived from the Saxon emigration of 1839, which was led by Martin Stephan and C. F. W. Walther. Much like their contemporaries Joseph

Smith and Alexander Campbell, Stephan and Walther sought to restore pure, primitive

Christianity. However, their standard for was not the church described in Acts but rather the Book of Concord. They wished to restore primitive Lutheranism, which they believed was a theologically pristine version of apostolic Christianity. While the historiography tends to divide Stephan from Walther following Stephan’s forced exile from

Missouri due to a sexual scandal, Walther and the Missouri Synod continued Stephan’s Lutheran restorationist impulse. In particular, Walther’s “citation theology” (or “repristination”), in which

Walther relied heavily upon quotations from the Confessions and Lutheran Fathers, illustrates the degree to which Walther utilized the Confessions to establish his Lutheran Zion.

Due to confessional Lutheranism’s stringent attachment to the theological particulars of the Book of Concord, relations with non-Lutheran churches are carefully regulated and often lead to controversy. Chapter Three examines the story of Hermann Sasse, a twentieth century

German professor at the University of Erlangen and contemporary of who opposed both Nazism and the Confessing Church, since the Confessing Church ignored doctrinal differences and therefore was improperly ecumenical. Following World War II, Sasse immigrated to Australia due to the perceived liberalism of the German Protestant Church. While in exile, Sasse composed a series of circular letters which he sent to around the world and in which he opined on current events in Lutheranism and theology. These letters were edited and

20 published by Matthew Harrison, the Missouri Synod’s president, between 2014 and 2016.

Through his creative use of the editorial apparatus, Harrison uses Sasse’s letters to construct the identity of the Missouri Synod as he argues with twenty-first century liberal Lutherans and evangelicals through footnotes to Sasse’s letters. Historical memory and book culture provide an avenue through which Harrison shapes his synod in the midst of intradenominational controversy.

Hymnody and hymnals provide another way through which confessional Lutheranism is constructed. Chapter Four contends that hymnals are polemical artifacts designed by synods to construct their own identity by distinguishing themselves from American evangelicalism. In other words, hymnals are reactions. Accusing evangelicals of being too freewheeling, ahistorical, and emotionally subjective, confessional Lutheran hymnals emphasize theological orthodoxy, connection to Lutheran tradition, and the objectivity of the Word and Sacraments in the Divine

Service. Rather than a human obligation towards God, Lutherans conceive of the Divine Service as the locus of God’s dispensing of grace through the Word and Sacraments. Therefore, worship must be orthodox. Confessional Lutheran theologians contrast their liturgical emphasis on objectivity with the subjectivity of an evangelical worship “experience,” which prevents certainty and assurance for the believer. This difference, while expressed through numerous

Lutheran critiques of evangelical worship, is expressed through the physical and editorial construction of Lutheran hymnals. Through the hymns selected and ignored by the committees and through edited hymn texts, Lutheran hymnals challenge evangelical notions of worship by emphasizing the objectivity of the Word and Sacraments and the importance of orthodoxy in worship.

21 Finally, Chapter Five extends the material analysis of the prior two chapters to church design. While church design among confessional Lutherans is not uniform, many recently constructed churches were designed specifically to reflect confessional Lutheran theology.

Through stained glass windows, altar placement, triptychs, and other features, church design provides a means of defining Lutherans against other Christians by avoiding architectural features reminiscent of evangelical worship centers. Much as with hymnals, church design focuses on the centrality of the Word and Sacraments to Lutheranism. They also serve as catechetical tools through which the faith is communicated to members and non-members. By describing and analyzing several case studies, this chapter maintains that confessional Lutheran architecture prioritizes the centrality of , the , and liturgical worship to the Lutheran faith in contrast to American evangelicalism.

Confessional Lutheranism is constructed in relation to its surroundings. Adherents analyze religious competitors through the lens of the Book of Concord, which presents an alternative source of authority which lacks an exact parallel in other Protestant traditions.

Through their doctrinal exactitude, confessional Lutherans reject evangelicalism as heterodox at best. For their own part, evangelicals taking a “big tent” approach to Protestant orthodoxy are perplexed by conservative Lutherans lack of participation in evangelical endeavors as well as the liturgical, sacramental, and quasi-Catholic approach to theology and worship articulated in

Lutheran theology. Historians expecting all religiously conservative Protestants to get along due to political similarities likewise do not know quite what to do with confessional Lutherans whose pugnaciousness belies stereotypes of Midwestern Lutherans quietly living their lives in Lake

22 Wobegon.53 Through its analysis of confessional Lutheran intellectual and material production, this dissertation better contextualizes confessional Lutheranism’s place in American religion.

53 The dissertation consciously avoids discussions of confessional Lutheran involvement in politics. Politically, confessional Lutherans resemble their conservative evangelical neighbors. Burkee and Todd’s studies of the Missouri Synod demonstrate this. The relationship between conservative Protestantism and conservative politics has been mined extensively in the historiography of American religion. While historical studies along those lines have been necessary and beneficial to the historiography, it has resulted in a virtual identification between theological and religious conservatism which blinds scholars to other aspects of religious conservatism in the . Religious conservatism cannot be fully measured by voting patterns. Since other scholars have discussed the relationship between political conservativism and confessional Lutheranism in the twentieth and twenty-first century, this dissertation foregoes that subject in order to focus on other aspects of confessional Lutheranism that have not seen equal scholarly treatment while opening up other avenues of analysis (such as church architecture, hymnal design, and book culture) for confessional Protestantisms specifically and religious conservatism in general. 23 CHAPTER 1

“THE BIBLE OF THE LAITY”: THE BOOK OF CONCORD AND AUTHORITY IN CONFESSIONAL LUTHERANISM

Across North America, Lutherans celebrate Reformation Sunday with gemütlichkeit.

Commemorating the traditional date of Martin Luther’s nailing the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church, thus symbolically beginning the Reformation, the Sunday is usually commemorated on the Sunday prior to October 31 in order not to conflict with All

Saints’ Day. Parishes typically hold Oktoberfest-style, German-themed potlucks complete with bratwurst, German potato salad, and other ethnically appropriate foods. Oftentimes games are offered for children, allowing them to “pin” the Ninety-Five Theses to a door as if they were pinning a tail to a donkey. The Divine Service that day inevitably involves a rendition of “A

Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Martin Luther’s Reformation battle hymn, as well as other hymns that celebrate the Reformation as a crowning moment in the history of God’s people. While the text is not always on Paul’s discussion of by faith in Romans 3, the sermon inevitably focuses upon that theme or the Reformation solas that were derived from the movement. If there is a uniquely Lutheran in the church , Reformation Sunday is it.

While the Ninety-Five Theses is the most popularly recognized document to come out of the Reformation and has been portrayed as the Lutheran Declaration of Independence, technically, the theses have no theological weight within the Lutheran churches. Certainly, they are important historical documents. However, no Lutheran child is forced to memorize a portion

(let alone all) of them, no Lutheran ministerial candidate swears fidelity to them, and no church bodies have broken fellowship with one another as a result of hermeneutical battles over the theses. The same cannot be said for the Book of Concord, also known as the Lutheran 24 Confessions. Written over the course of the sixteenth century by Luther and the second generation of Lutheran theologians, the documents contained in the Book of Concord were codified in 1580, and the Lutheran confessional canon has remained closed since. While meant to unify Lutherans in the aftermath of the Reformation and various internecine theological debates that occurred after Luther’s death in 1546, the Confessions have served as a point of debate for Lutherans as they determined the trajectory of their tradition.

The Book of Concord defines Lutheranism. This is an admittedly commonsensical observation, since confessional documents by nature elucidate the doctrinal stances of a theological tradition and denote its boundaries. However, the importance of the Confessions to

Lutheranism cannot be overstated. They are not simply historical documents. Instead, they correctly summarize and rearticulate the Word of God in neat doctrinal statements. Therefore, to doubt, alter, or conditionally subscribe to the Confessions is to deny divinely revealed truth.

Nearly a half millennium after their composition, they reign supreme in determining orthodox

Lutheranism, particularly in North America. Their importance is only further demonstrated by their role in the divisions within North American Lutheranism. It is no coincidence that, in the tradition’s polemical taxonomy, the great divide is not between “conservative” and “liberal”

Lutherans but between “confessional” Lutherans and “liberal” Lutherans. Confessionalism is equated with theological conservatism and orthodoxy just as subscription to “the fundamentals” defined early twentieth century American fundamentalism.

In his biography of Presbyterian fundamentalist J. Gresham Machen, historian D. G. Hart argued that American fundamentalists were divided between “populist” and “confessionalist” parties. Whereas populist fundamentalists like William Jennings Bryan consisted of a broadly based movement determined to uphold certain “fundamental” doctrines from liberal assault, J.

25 Gresham Machen “rejected the idealism of liberal Protestantism in order to return to the truths of

Presbyterian orthodoxy.”54 In other words, Machen’s devotion to Presbyterian standards, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, which left no room for dispensationalism or other theologies that were popular amongst fundamentalists, differentiated himself from William

Jennings Bryan, C. I. Scofield, and William Bell Riley, who were less concerned with traditional denominational theology. To some degree, Hart’s taxonomy is self-serving. As a member of

Machen’s Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Hart’s bifurcation allowed him to separate his brand of fundamentalism from that of the Scopes Monkey Trial or the prophecy books of the late twentieth century, all of which bespeak to an anti-intellectualism that repulses Hart.55 However, it is also historiographically insightful. Hart recognized that conservative Protestants who adhere stringently to their traditional confessions do not fit into common narratives of fundamentalism that focus on premillennialism or supposed cultural and intellectual retreat. Instead, such narratives flatten the complexity of North American religious conservatism. Hart’s category of

“confessional fundamentalist” liberates historians from historiographical blinders requiring them to focus solely on dispensationalists of various stripes. The category’s utility does not end there, though. Different confessional Protestant traditions, obviously, subscribe to different confessions. Therefore, the nature of confessionalism shifts from tradition to tradition, and one cannot understand a particular tradition unless one analyzes the nature and role of its confessions. The purpose of this chapter is to do exactly that.

54 D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2003), 78. 55 Hart’s subsequent historical and theological career bears out this judgment. Most of his writings focus on perceived wrong turns taken by evangelicals and fundamentalists as well as the necessity of a revival of distinctly Reformed liturgy and theology. For instance, see D. G. Hart, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); D. G. Hart, From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011); D. G. Hart, Recovering Mother Kirk: The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003); and D. G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism. 26 The Book of Concord provides a standard for confessional, conservative Lutherans within the context of an American Protestantism which lacks a unifying, substantive source of authority. Of course, theologically speaking, the prime authority for Protestantism is the Bible, and confessional Lutherans are no different on this count. However, a common belief in the theological sufficiency of scripture has been incapable of warding off theological division and controversy. Historian Molly Worthen argued that the central narrative of American evangelicalism has been one of crises resulting from lack of authority, and “the sundry believers who share the evangelical label have all lacked an extrabiblical authority powerful enough to guide them through these crises.”56 Confessional Lutherans differentiate themselves from their conservative Methodist, Baptist, and Congregationalist neighbors by holding strictly to their confessions as the determiner of orthodoxy and refusing to countenance anything that runs counter to their sixteenth century articulation of Lutheran theology.

The Lutheran Confessions are not scriptural. The documents acknowledge their subservience to the Bible, and Lutheran theologians, regardless of affiliation, quickly note that the Book of Concord stands secondary to the Bible in authority. From an etic perspective, the

Confessions possess an ambiguous canonical status within Lutheranism. While the term “canon” is frequently used exclusively to describe the Bible’s table of contents, this chapter’s use of the term recognizes that confessional Lutheranism, just as any other conservative Protestant tradition, maintains other authorities to maintain the boundaries of orthodoxy, and the use of those authorities parallels the application of scripture. In Lutheranism’s case, the ten “symbolical books” of the Book of Concord serve as that extrabiblical authority which encourages “correct”

56 Worthen, 7. 27 biblical interpretation.57 However, the Confessions’ canonical ambiguity rests in their relation to scripture. Though they are viewed as secondary to the Bible, practically their status is less clear.

Since the Confessions are treated as timeless rearticulations of biblical truth, which itself is eternal, they functionally serve as a source of truth beyond which theology need not develop.

Therefore, confessional Lutheran theologians quote them at will, alongside biblical chapter and verse, in order to illustrate the “orthodox” approach to any given issue, as the documents are equally as applicable in sixteenth century debates as they are in a twenty-first century context.

The fuzziness of the relationship between the two is confirmed by insider critics who have questioned the seemingly scriptural usage of the Confessions and “the Fathers” amongst North

American confessional Lutherans.58

This chapter analyzes the role of the Lutheran Confessions as a canonical source of authority for conservative Lutheranism in North America. First, the nature of “canon” in

American religious history will be discussed in order to be further contextualization for the claim that the Lutheran Confessions belong to a distinctively Lutheran canon. This will be followed a description of the Book of Concord and its history in North America, focusing primary on the dogmatic theology of Francis Pieper, who shaped much of American confessional Lutheran theology through his textbook. The degree of authority given by confessional Lutherans in the

57 The argument could also be made that the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth century “Lutheran Fathers,” who were the scholastic theologians who built upon Luther’s theology, and those of nineteenth century dogmaticians such as C. F. W. Walther and Franz Pieper maintain a tertiary degree of authority within the Lutheran canon, since they elucidate the Book of Concord, which in turn rearticulates the Bible. 58 Controversies occasionally erupt within confessional Lutheran denominations concerning potential over-reliance upon the Confessions. One such involved Wisconsin Synod theologian John Philip Koehler, who argued that his synod practiced Vätertheologie, which allowed the Confessions and the writings of the Luther fathers to eclipse the Bible as Lutheranism’s ultimate source of authority. Advocating what became known as “Wauwautosa Theology,” Koehler implored Wisconsin Synod ministers to return to in order to flesh out their theology. Koehler’s position was unpopular at the time, and he was eventually dismissed from the seminary. See Leigh Donald Jordahl, “The Wauwautosa Theology, John Philip Koehler, and the Theological Tradition of Midwestern American Lutheranism, 1900-1930,” PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1964. 28 nineteenth century will then be examined through Missouri Synod theologian C. F. W. Walther’s nineteenth century application of the language and worldview of the Confessions to Methodists.

Walther’s identification of Methodists and other evangelicals as equivalents of the sixteenth century Schwärmerei illustrates the perceived timelessness of the documents in Lutheran eyes.

Finally, the Confessions’ role in Lutheran life will be further demonstrated through the multivalent uses of Luther’s Small Catechism in parish life.

This chapter does not make a theological argument that the Book of Concord is on par with biblical scripture. That is a concern that lies outside the bounds of this dissertation, which is an exercise in historical analysis. Rather, this chapter argues that confessional Lutherans in North

America over the last two centuries have granted a degree of authority to the Book of Concord that is unprecedented in American Protestantism. This fact ought to force American religious historians to reexamine the ways in which we analyze “traditional” or confessional Protestant denominations and the nature of authority in Protestantism.

Canons and Authority in American Religion

It is a theological and historical truism that Protestants accept the Bible as the ultimate authority of religious truth. Historian Alister McGrath cheekily called sola scriptura

“Christianity’s dangerous idea.”59 Historians of American religion have used the Bible expertly as a focal point as they crafted their narratives.60 Few historians would claim that American

Christians simply interpret the Bible in a vacuum. Rather, Protestants are bound by their social and intellectual contexts, which inevitably affect their hermeneutics. For instance, in America’s

59 Alister McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution – A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007). 60 For instance, see Mark A. Noll, In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 29 God, historian Mark Noll identifies an “American synthesis” which consisted of “a compound of evangelical Protestant religion, republican political ideology, and commonsense moral reasoning.”61 In order to define evangelicalism, Noll relies upon David Bebbington’s

“quadrilateral,” of which one of the prongs is “biblicism,” or “reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority.”62 In his narrative, Noll argues that evangelicalism’s indebtedness to Scottish commonsense realism inhibited its ability to interpret the Bible so as to confront appropriately the social and theological challenges that arose in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.63 Among traditional religious authorities accepted by Americans, the Bible reigned alone.64 Noll acknowledged that “American belief in Scripture was never as simple as believers in the Bible alone assumed,” but he still grants the “Reformed, literal hermeneutic” that he identified as being shared by most American Christians places the Bible first and foremost in terms of authority, as he notes that “a prominent feature common to much of the era’s Protestant discourse…was the assumption that life’s great issues were simple and could be controlled simply by appeal to simple human exertion and to the simple words of Scripture.”65 This approach to scripture was challenged in various manners by African Americans, Lutherans, and

Mercersburg theologians, but they are deemed “failed alternatives” which did not contribute meaningfully to the national theological discourse.66

As Noll narrates American religious history to 1865, he assumes that, regardless of the philosophical baggage that Protestants bring to the table, the Bible remains their ultimate

61 Mark A. Noll, America’s God, 9. 62 Ibid., 5. For Bebbington’s quadrilateral, see D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Routledge, 1989), 2-17. 63 “In the decades before the Civil War, a Protestant amalgam of traditional faith and public order helped construct a great Christian civilization, but commitment to that very civilization would in the Civil War trivialize the that had brought it into existence” (Noll, America’s God, 438). 64 Ibid., 371. 65 Ibid., 382. 66 Ibid., 402-421. 30 authority for truth claims. In other words, the canon was closed.67 While Noll and others correctly note that sola scriptura is never really sola scriptura due to the influence of hermeneutical presuppositions, historians ought to interrogate the Bible’s authoritative role within Protestant communities. Sola scriptura is first and foremost a theological principle by which Protestants construct their self-narratives and claims of authority. For instance, the argument would go, Presbyterians do not follow ’s teachings or base the authority of their truth claims in the genius of the Genevan Reformation. Rather, the truths recovered by

Calvin and later Reformed theologians are found in the Bible, and their validity rests in that alone. Because the scriptural canon is closed, Calvin cannot enter it. Therefore, he necessarily possesses secondary authority. However, one wonders if that is a theological or historical distinction and how impenetrable is the wall separating Luther from Paul and Calvin from

Moses. Though their theologies (and the confessions that standardizes their systems) are derivative in relation to the Bible, they are functionally ambiguous as sources of truth. In order to better grasp the role of the Book of Concord in North American confessional Lutheranism, the ambiguity latent in the relationship between sola scriptura and Protestant authority will be contextualized by questioning the closed nature of the Protestant canon of authority.

Belief in a closed canon is a sine qua non of Protestants, and it has become a useful tool for historians seeking to make sense of American religion. Part of the perceived peculiarity of

Mormonism, for instance, is its rejection of that doctrine.68 However, historian David Holland

67 This chapter uses the word “canon” to describe a standard or source of religious authority. See William J. Abraham, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: from the Fathers to Feminism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 10; David F. Holland, Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 8-9, 36-39; Lee Martin McDonald, The : Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 38-69; and Eugene Ulrich, “The Notion and Definition of Canon,” in The Canon Debates, ed. Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), 19-35 68 See Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day in American Religion, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 31 has convincingly demonstrated that, regardless of official belief in a closed canon, the reality is more complicated. Indeed, Holland argued that debates over the nature of the canon are intrinsic to American religion and can be found in unexpected places. For instance, Holland pointed to the

United Church of Christ, the institutional descendants of the New England Puritans, who officially believe in a closed biblical canon but, in the early 2000’s, publicized their denomination’s progressive theology through the “Still Speaking” campaign. Operating under the slogan “God is still speaking,” which was followed by an oversized comma, Holland notes that the “massive comma, carries the unavoidable implication that more divine words are coming.”69 Though their adopted statements of faith attest to a closed canon, their theology and public relations campaigns indicate a porous canon which allows contemporary trends and movements, such as gay rights or liberal theology in general, to supplant biblical authority when such a theological move is deemed necessary.

The United Church of Christ was hardly unique. Paradoxically, confessing a closed canon has rarely equated believing that the heavens are silent. Puritan ministers frequently compared themselves to biblical , though they were quick to note that their prophecies and revelations came “in and according to” the Bible and that they themselves were not prophets in the biblical sense.70 Holland notes that “the dissenting movements that closed the canon most tightly seemed especially verbose.”71 However, they vehemently asserted their secondary status in relation to scripture, and, unlike Catholics and Anglicans, they eschewed using the word

“canon” to describe their authoritative ponderings. Rather, they preferred “platform” or

“confession” in order to further separate themselves from scriptural status.72 While the Puritans

69 Holland, 5. 70 Ibid., 26-27 (emphasis in the original). 71 Ibid., 33. 72 Ibid., 33. 32 believed that God was pleased with the confessions and even “owned” them, theologically they were deemed less authoritative than the Bible, though this did not prevent their opponents from arguing that, official theology aside, the New England theologians treated them otherwise.73

Aside from Puritan confessions of faith, other New England Christians sought answers from God in the “book of nature,” or creation. This could refer either to natural revelation or in the actions of providence through creation. Holland argued that “tellingly, Puritan appeals to the divinatory power of providences seemed exceptionally prominent in moments of scriptural impasse, times when opposing camps read the same Bible and came to conflicting opinions.”74

Through war, pestilence, or, more positively, an eventual ecclesiastical consensus concerning a controversy through which “God…would ultimately resolve such good-faith conflicts,” God continued to speak to his people. However, theologians again quickly and loudly noted that these expressions of providence were secondary to canonized scripture. “Again and again,” Holland notes, “providence took its readers into the canonical borderlands while orthodoxy and prudence forbade them to cross.”75 Perhaps the Puritans protested too much.

Other Christians did not protest, since they rejected the concept of a closed canon.

Mormons are a classic example of American Christians confessing and implementing an open canon. Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1829, claiming to have translated golden plates that were “the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”76 In doing so, he defied mainstream Christianity’s claim that the scriptural canon was closed. However, he also challenged the presumed self-sufficiency of scripture itself. While the Book of Mormon was “the

73 Ibid., 35. 74 Ibid., 42. 75 Ibid., 43. 76 The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981), i. 33 most correct of any book on earth,” it was also a book that acknowledged its errancy, as Book of

Mormon prophets frequently accepted blame for any potential mistakes within the book.77 Also, the book was incomplete. Smith claimed that he was not allowed to translate all of the plates included in the Book of Mormon. Additionally, the presence (or lack thereof) of the “lost 116 pages” of the Book of Lehi which Smith’s associate Martin Harris misplaced belies the completeness of the book. Smiths’ Book of Mormon did not simply dynamite the Protestant canon but also notions of scripture. Inspired scripture could be imperfect and incomplete.

Thankfully for Mormons, Joseph Smith’s prophetic gifts filled in the gaps. Smith created a theological reality in which the strictures of biblical canon were irrelevant virtually to the point of nonexistence. Joseph Smith picked up where John of Patmos left off, and the intervening years were largely a blur of apostasy. Even the biblical text was malleable, as Smith attempted to translate the Bible through his prophetic abilities rather than referencing ancient manuscripts and original languages and, in the process, cut the Song of Solomon from the canon as “not inspired writings.”78 Indeed, every scriptural text was malleable. As Joseph Smith’s revelations were published in canonized compilations, many of them were modified or expanded beyond the original documents.79 Both ancient and modern scriptures were living documents being constantly edited and re-edited by God’s mouthpiece.

Smith’s prophetic gifts overrode traditional canonicity by providing immediacy and immense flexibility, but this does not mean that he eliminated the need for a canon. Indeed, soon after the organization of the Church of Christ in 1830, Smiths’ revelations were codified and

77 For instance, in 1 Nephi, the Book of Mormon’s first book, Nephi, the author, writes that “if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself”(1 Nephi 19:6). Nephi admits that even though he is writing scripture, there are potential errors in his text. 78 The Holy Scriptures: Inspired Version (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 2002), 653. 79 Karl F. Best, “Changes in the Revelations, 1833 to 1835,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25, no. 1 (1989): 87-112. 34 published, originally as the Book of Commandments and later as the Doctrine and Covenants.

Since their publications, the canons of the various churches of the Latter Day movement have remained flexible. The Community of Christ frequently updates their edition of the

Doctrine and Covenants with new revelations from their , and the LDS version likewise is open to additional documents from past and current prophets. Also, the semi-annual General

Conferences addresses of LDS General Authorities, or the church hierarchy, are frequently considered God’s words for today and thus are scriptural. This latter point highlights the flexibility of the Latter Day Saint open canon. Even though the LDS Church has canonized four

“standard works” as scriptural (two of which – the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of

Great Price – are theoretically open to additions), additional sources of authority exist alongside the books designated as “scripture.” This highlights the canonical ambiguity present even within a theological system that accepts an open canon.

Alongside the closed, porous, and open canons lies a functionally addended canon model that is best exemplified by the approach of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and the authority of its

“textbook,” Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. recognized Science and Health as being a derivative work based on the Bible, since her discovery of Christian

Science was the product of her Bible study during a period of rehabilitation in 1866.80 However, the coming forth of , and Science and Health, was also an eschatological event.

In her 1895 dedicatory sermon of the in , Eddy claimed that “No longer are we of the church militant, but of the church triumphant,” implying that the had occurred with her discovery.81 Accordingly, she claimed divine inspiration for the text that ushered in this new era: “It was not myself, but the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely

80 Gillian Gill, Mary Baker Eddy, Radcliffe Biography Series (New York: Da Capo, Press, 1999), 161-168. 81 Mary Baker Eddy, and Press (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1923), 3. 35 above me, which dictated ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.’ I have been learning the higher meaning of this book since writing it.”82 Elsewhere she wrote that “I should blush to write of ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ as I have, were it of human origin, and were I, apart from God, its author. But, as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine , I cannot be super-modest in my estimate of the Christian Science textbook.”83 Eddy distanced herself from her text. While she wrote and constantly revised

Science and Health, God was the source. In this sense, she shared authorial similarities with

Joseph Smith.

Despite Science and Health’s divine authorship, it still was Christian Science’s

“textbook” – not scripture or bible. The movement already had a Bible, and Science and Health merely clarified it and elucidated its metaphysical teachings. Eddy claimed that “the genuine

Christian Scientist will tell you that he has found the physical and spiritual status of a perfect life through his textbook.”84 That is not because the book is special in of itself, but rather because

“the textbook of Christian Science maintains primitive Christianity, shows how to demonstrate it, and throughout is logical in premise and conclusion.”85 Science and Health is spiritually efficacious because it rearticulates biblical teachings that have been blurred by materialism.

While Christian Science is not a creedal religion, the basic articles of faith provided by Eddy in

Science and Health confess that “As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.”86 Waving the banner of sola scriptura, Eddy elsewhere claimed that the difference between Christian Science and other churches rested on the fact that

82 Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1941), 114. 83 Ibid., 115. 84 Ibid., 111. 85 Ibid., 111. 86 Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1934), 407. 36 “Our religious denominations interpret the Scriptures to fit a doctrine, but the doctrines taught by divine Science are founded squarely and only on the Scriptures.”87 Eddy claimed that the Bible was her church’s only scripture. On paper, she accepted the Protestant canon and judged it

“sufficient.” However, Science and Health’s very existence and status within Christian Science belies that claim. Indeed, Eddy claimed that “The student of this book [Science and Health] will tell you that his higher life is the result of the conscientious study of Science and Health in connection with the Bible.”88 Science and Health was transformative because it opened the reader’s eyes to a previously mysterious text. As Christian Scientist historian wrote, “Mrs. Eddy meant for Science and Health to serve an instrumental and not a sacramental function.”89 It pointed to the Bible and supplemented it rather than supplanting it or seeking parity.

Functionally, however, it achieved functional parity with the Bible. Alongside claiming divine inspiration for the book, Mary Baker Eddy also ordained it and the Bible as the impersonal co-pastors of Christian Science churches in 1895. Services would consist of hymns and “Lesson-Sermons” consisting of readings from the Bible and Science and Health. Eddy’s unique arrangement intended to unify the church and remove human or material filters from the proclamation of Truth, but it also raised the status of Science and Health.90 Christian Scientists understand the Lesson-Sermon as “a direct message of Truth, speaking impartially and universally to one and all, bringing blessings from our Father-Mother God.”91 Also, “the Science

87 Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, 112. 88 Ibid., 112. 89 Stephen Gottschalk, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 45 90 Concerning the role of Science and Health as co-pastor, see Stephen Gottschalk, Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy’s Challenge to Materialism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 225-230. 91 The Importance of the Lesson-Sermons: The Christian Science Bible Lessons, Stronger than Armies, Our Lesson- Sermon, Value of the Lesson-Sermons (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1948), 11. 37 and Health [sic] quotations do their part in unfolding and enforcing the subject” alongside the

Bible.”92 Therefore, while the Bible maintains ultimate authority within Christian Science, as per

Eddy’s , Science and Health, as an interpretative key to the scriptures, gained equal status – regardless of the official theology of the church. Whether or not Eddy and her disciples wished to admit it, their scriptural canon had been functionally addended.93 In other words, the canon officially remained the same – the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible. Unlike Mormonism,

Eddy did not officially reopen the canon and proclaim a new era of revelations that would expand upon the Bible. Rather, she was the medium of an inspired book which explained the

Bible and which therefore was inherently derivative and subordinate to that book. However, functionally, the Christian Science textbook gained equal status with the Bible as the church’s co-pastor. Together the Bible and Science and Health provide “a continuous feast at the table of spiritual consciousness.”94 Without Science and Health, Christian Scientists imply, one’s spiritual meal would be less nourishing. Christian Science therefore provides yet another model of canon in which a supplemental text that is derivative of the Bible functionally gains equal authority with the Bible, regardless of the church’s official theology, as it becomes the lens through which scripture is interpreted.

Reviewing several (though certainly not all) models of canon within American

Christianity illustrates the ambiguity inherent in the Bible’s relationship with supplemental texts in various traditions, whether they be liberal theology, quasi-prophetic sermons, the Book of

92 Ibid., 7. 93 In his study of the authority of Eddy’s writings within Christian Science, David L. Weddle notes that “The advantage Christian Scientists had over the original Christians was the extent of authoritative writings made available through continuing revelation to Eddy…. Following the logic of progressive revelation, her students came to regard Eddy’s other prose works as the ‘key’ to Science and Health, as it is the ‘key’ to the Bible” (David L. Weddle, “The Christian Science Textbook: An Analysis of the Religious Authority of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy,” The Harvard Theological Review 84, no. 3 (July 1991): 291). 94 The Importance of the Lesson-Sermons: The Christian Science Bible Lessons, Stronger than Armies, Our Lesson- Sermon, Value of the Lesson-Sermons, 11. 38 Mormon and associated visions, Science and Health, or the Book of Concord. Scholarly models of canon are slippery, and historians run the risk of simplifying the nature of religious authority in American Christianity by applying the terms “open” or “closed canon.” Specifically, historians run the risk of accepting the theological principle of sola scriptura as reality without interrogation. The several models given in this section demonstrate different manners in which non-biblical materials gain authoritative status alongside the Bible, whether that authority is official and acknowledged, as in the case of Mormonism, or unofficial and functional, as evident in the relationship between the Bible and Science and Health within Christian Science. In order to understand confessional Lutheranism and the authority of the Confessions in that community, one must reconsider historical truisms that pay homage to sola scriptura and assume tradition’s subordinate role. As the remainder of this chapter will demonstrate, the relationship between scripture and tradition within confessional Lutheranism is unexpectedly permeable.

“This is most certainly true”: The Book of Concord, Francis Pieper, and the Theology of

the Confessions

Within the models of canon presented in the previous section, the Book of Concord parallels Science and Health as the “addendum” within a functionally addended canon.

Consisting of ten confessional documents written by Lutheran theologians in the sixteenth century, the Book of Concord derives its authority from the Bible, the teachings of which it claims to rearticulate. Within conservative Lutheran theology, it neither supplants the Bible nor supplements it (since the Bible is solely sufficient and required no mediation). Instead, it is the norma normata (normed norm), whereas the Bible is designated the norma normans (norming norm). However, functionally their relationship is more ambiguous than the theology admits.

39 While the Book of Concord is not regularly read from the pulpit like Science and Health, within theological texts it is cited and revered in a manner reminiscent of scripture. It is believed to be correct because (quia) the documents are faithful to scripture and rearticulate its teachings purely. This is possible because confessional Lutheran dogmatic theologians, such as Francis

Pieper, argued that the book lacked theological originality and consisted solely of a collection and systemization of biblical doctrine. Therefore, confessional Lutheran theology views the book as inerrant and treats it as a safeguard of both the Bible and .

The Book of Concord consists of ten documents (counting the , as per tradition) that span the ’s development in sixteenth century Germany.95 Beginning with the three ancient ecumenical creeds (the Apostles’ Creed, , and Athanasian

Creed), the book proceeds to documents composed by Martin Luther (such as the Smalcald

Articles and the Small and Large Catechisms) and his contemporaries (e.g., the Augsburg

Confession and Melanchthon’s Apology of the ). The final era represented in the Confessions is the post-Luther period in which Lutheran developed, sorting out “true” Lutheranism in opposition to perceived counterfeit varieties. This is represented by the

Formula of Concord, which provides the most detailed and polemical description of Lutheran theology found in the Confessions. Together, these documents define the theological boundaries of Lutheranism.

95 It is outside the scope of this dissertation to provide a detailed history of the Lutheran Confessions. For such a survey, see Charles P. Arand, Robert Kolb, and James A. Nestingen, The Lutheran Confessions: History and Theology of the Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012); Friedrich Bente, Historical Introductions to the Lutheran Confessions, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005); Holsten Fagerberg, A New Look at the Lutheran Confessions (1529-1537), trans. Gene J. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972); Robert Kolb, Andreae and the : Six Sermons on the Way to Lutheran Unity (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1977); Robert Kolb, Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 1530-1580 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1991); and William R. Russell, “The Theological ‘Magna Charta’ of Confessional Lutheranism,” Church History 64, no. 3 (September 1995): 389-398. For a social history of the implementation of the Confessions, see Bodo Nischan, Prince, People, and Confession: The Second Reformation in Brandenburg (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). 40 Borne out of sundry theological controversies, the documents are inherently polemical.

Defining themselves against Catholics, Reformed Protestants, Anabaptists, and other Lutherans, the Confessions carried bite. In many cases, the documents sought to stake out a conservative identity for the upstart Lutherans. In their debates with Catholics (particularly with governing authorities allied with Rome), it behooved Lutherans to claim fealty to traditional doctrine. The

Augsburg Confession provides the perfect case study in this. Written in 1530 to Charles V, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, in order to summarize their theological positions before the

Imperial Diet, Melanchthon, the primary author, notes that he intended to demonstrate “what manner of doctrine from the Holy Scriptures and the pure Word of God has been up to this time set forth in our lands, dukedoms, dominions, and cities, and taught in our churches.”96

Alongside the appeal to scripture also came appeals to tradition. For instance, the first article of the confession (“Of God”) noted that “Our Churches, with common consent, do teach that the decree of the Council of Nicaea concerning the Unity of the Divine Essence and concerning the Three Persons, is true and to be believed without any doubting….”97 Virtually in the confession’s first breath, it swore fidelity to the Nicene Creed, arguing that there is no difference between Catholic and Lutheran positions on the nature of God. This positive reference was followed by an accompanying damnant that noted that Lutherans “condemn all heresies which have sprung against this article” and then provided a lengthy list of various ancient heresies denounced by the Lutheran confessors. The Augsburg Confession argued that the

Lutheran Reformation was a conservative reformation by constant use of this twofold formula.98

96 Concordia Triglotta (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 39. 97 Ibid., 43. 98 Charles Porterfield Krauth, a nineteenth century Lutheran theologian and leader of the confessional movement in the Eastern United States, argued this point in The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology As Represented in the Augsburg Confession and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007). The work is highly polemical (directed against “American Lutherans” like Samuel Simon 41 By referencing the ecumenical creeds, Melanchthon illustrated that Lutherans hewed to the historical teachings of the church and therefore maintained continuity with the catholic faith.

This was further demonstrated through constant condemnations of the Anabaptists, who were condemned for thinking “that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works,” for refusing to baptize infants, forbidding Christians from holding civil offices, and other positions that marked them as outside the mainstream of sixteenth century Christian thought.99 As much as the Augsburg Confession argued positively that being

Lutheran meant being catholic, negatively it defined Lutheranism against the Anabaptists, who were viewed as a threat to civil society. In other words, Lutherans defined themselves as the reasonable alternative to the Anabaptists.

Melanchthon employed the above strategy primarily in the first twenty-one articles of the document, which were labeled as the “chief articles of faith.”100 The final seven articles highlighted points of contention with the Roman Catholic Church, which were labeled as

“articles in which are reviewed the abuses which have been corrected.”101 Even these articles exhibited a conservative tone. For instance, Melanchthon argues that partaking of the Eucharist in both kinds (i.e., receiving both the host and wine) is in accord with “the old Canons and the example of the Church.” He even cites the opinion of a previous pope to make his case.102

Similarly, in his argument in favor of allowing to marry, the author notes that “It is also evident that in the ancient Church priests were married men.103 Thus, when Lutherans disagreed

Schmucker and revivalistic evangelicals), but the basic thrust of the book as found in its title properly describes the sixteenth century Lutherans’ self-narrative. 99 Concordia Triglotta, 45, 47, 49, and 51. 100 Ibid., 43. 101 Ibid., 59. 102 Ibid., 61. 103 Ibid., 61. 42 with Roman and practice and sought to reform them, they were the conservatives, and they hearkened back both to scripture and tradition to cement their bona fides.

The constructed conservatism of the Augsburg Confession was replicated by the rest of the confessional documents. The ecumenical creeds’ placement at the front of the Book of

Concord, of course, was no mistake. It allowed Lutherans to claim legitimacy as a continuity of the catholic faith. As the editors of the Missouri Synod’s 2006 edition of the Book of Concord,

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, wrote, “Lutheranism is not a new faith, but a continuation of the historic, Christian faith of all times and places…. Lutheranism is not about revolution, but reformation. It is not about throwing away the past, but about retaining and preserving the best, while filtering out whatever covers and contradicts God’s Word.”104 Lutheranism’s allegiance to the past was firm yet nuanced. The confessors did not accept tradition as an equal source of authority of the Bible, and its use of the was qualified. According to the Missouri

Synod’s edition of the Confessions, “Lutheranism embraces this [ancient] history as its own – but with discernment. Lutheranism does not regard the traditions and teachings of the Father of the Church as equal to Scripture, but always subject to evaluation in light of Scripture.”105

Melanchthon, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, argued that “there is a great diversity among the Fathers. They were men, and could err and be deceived. Although if they would now become alive again, and would see their sayings assigned as pretext for the notorious falsehoods which the adversaries [i.e., Catholics] teach concerning the opus operatum, they would interpret themselves far differently.”106 Elsewhere, Melanchthon claimed that “the writings of the holy

Fathers testify that sometimes even they built stubble upon the foundation, but…this did not

104 Paul D. McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 15. 105 Ibid., 15. 106 Concordia Triglotta, 417. 43 overthrow their faith.”107 The Fathers were fallible and therefore “they are consciously accorded an inferior position” within the Confessions.108 As twentieth century German Lutheran theologian Edmund Schlink noted, “The church fathers are quoted [by the Confessions] because of their consensus in Scripture exposition.”109 In other words, their utility relied upon their ability to properly elucidate the Word – not on their own authority.

The Confessions’ conservatism did not rest solely upon the foundations of the fathers or tradition. Rather, the prime authority of the documents came through their relationship with scripture. Of course the Confessions understood themselves to be human documents. The

Lutheran Confessions themselves did not claim scriptural status for themselves, as the Formula of Concord noted that “other writings [than scripture]…of ancient or modern teachers, whatever name they bear, must not be regarded as equal to the Holy Scriptures, but all of them together be subjected to them, and should not be received otherwise or further than as witnesses, [which are to show] in what manner after the time of the apostles, and at what places, this doctrine of the prophets and apostles was preserved.”110 Despite this disclaimer, the Confessions were more than theological treatises created in the context of debate and conflict. They were witnesses to an eschatological event. The Preface to the Christian Book of Concord acknowledged this in its first sentence: “It is a remarkable favor of Almighty God that in these last times and in this old age of the world He has willed, according to His unspeakable love, forbearance, and mercy, that after the darkness of papistical superstitions the light of His Gospel and Word, through which alone we receive true salvation, should arise and shine clearly and purely in Germany, our most

107 Concordia Triglotta, 233. 108 Edmund Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, Concordia Classics (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1961), 3. 109 Ibid., 17. 110 Ibid., 778. 44 beloved fatherland.”111 The Reformation and the work of Martin Luther marked the restoration of pure, apostolic doctrine, which was confessed in the documents within the Book of Concord.

The Confessions purely reflected God’s Word and thereby derived authority from the

Word through the pristine nature of the documents’ rearticulation of biblical doctrine. The

Confessions’ attitude towards scripture is best captured in The Formula of Concord, the Book of

Concord’s crowning document, which declared that Luther’s doctrine “has been collected from, and according to, God’s Word into the articles and chapters of the Augsburg Confession against the corruptions of the Papacy and also of other sects.”112 The author of The Formula of Concord viewed doctrines as items capable of being plucked out of scripture and set perfectly within a new context. The Augsburg Confession was not authoritative “because it was composed by our theologians, but because it has been taken from God’s Word and is founded firmly and well therein….”113 The Bible thus transferred authority to the Book of Concord and therefore made it a norm: “because it [The Formula of Concord] has been derived from God’s Word, all other writings should be judged and adjusted as to how far they are to be approved and accepted.”114

The Book of Concord thus was a trustworthy catalogue of scriptural doctrine, and therein lay its power. Even though God’s Word itself could not be replicated, since it was of divine origin, it could be rearticulated and retain a high degree of that original authority.

The view that theology was a matter of collection was codified by Lutheran scholastic theologians and then further implemented by confessional Lutheran theologians in North

America. , a seventeenth century Lutheran scholastic theologian, articulated the relationship between scripture and doctrine using the terms “archetypal theology” and “ectypal

111 Concordia Triglotta, 7. 112 Concordia Triglotta, 851 (emphasis mine). 113 Ibid., 851. 114 Ibid., 855. 45 theology.” Gerhard believed that “archetypal (or prototypal) theology is in God the Creator, by which theology God knows Himself in Himself and knows everything outside Himself through

Himself by an indivisible and immutable act of knowing.” This is contrasted with “ectypal theology, which is following and created, accidental and finite” and is “expressed and formed from the former [archetypal theology], as it were, by a gracious communication.”115 This concept became central to North American confessional Lutheran theology. Francis Pieper (1852-1931), a president of the Missouri Synod and the author of Christian Dogmatics, which after nearly a century remains the primary textbook for confessional Lutheran seminarians, applied Gerhard’s terminology to Christian doctrine.116 He defined ectypal theology as “a reproduction, re- presentation, of the theologia ἀρχέτυπος, the archetypal, or original, theology, which is that knowledge of God and divine things originally found only in God, but which God has graciously communicated to man through His Word.”117 To Pieper, theology was intellectual reproduction, or, more specifically, “the reproduction of the Scripture doctrine.”118 It was neither a creative nor innovative enterprise. Rather, “all that the Christian theologian does is that he compiles the doctrinal statements contained in Scripture (in the text and context), groups them under their heads, and arranges these doctrines in the order of their relationship.”119

Theological progress was impossible, because one could not progress beyond scripture.

Moreover, theology did not develop. If the proper method of theology was collecting biblical doctrines and fashioning them into a recognizable system, then the notion that theological

115 Johann Gerhard, On the Nature of Theology and on Scripture, trans. Richard J. Dinda (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 22. 116 Concerning Pieper and the importance of his thought amongst confessional Lutherans, see Leigh D. Jordahl, “The Theology of Franz Pieper: A Resource for Fundamentalistic Modes Among American Lutherans,” Lutheran Quarterly 23 (1971): 118-137. 117 Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols. (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1950), 1:58. 118 Ibid., 1:59. 119 Ibid., 1:52. 46 understanding could change was inconceivable. Doctrine borrowed from the eternality of the

Word and therefore gained a relatively static nature in Pieper’s dogmatics. Pieper declared,

“There can be no development of Christian doctrine, because the Christian doctrine given to the

Church by the Apostles is a finished product, complete and perfect, fixed for all times. It is not in need of improvement and allows no alteration.”120 He claimed that, in exhorting the

Thessalonian church to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our ,” Paul “insisted on the finality and immutability of their doctrine…. And this injunction was not only addressed to the Apostolic Church, but to the Church of all times.”121 The apostle “left no room for an interim theology” between his own and a later, better version.122 Rather, doctrine as presented in scripture was pristine and ready for the theologian, minister, or layperson to grasp and believe.

While it would be an overstatement to judge Pieper’s dogmatic theology as ahistorical,

Pieper certainly believed that Christian doctrine was elevated above historical context. He argued that “according to Scripture the Christian religion is not, like other religions, the result of a natural historical development; it is not one of many kindred religions; not a religion absorbing and supplementing other religions; but it was from the very beginning the absolute religion, absolute and exclusive in the strict sense of the term….”123 Instead, doctrine came directly by

God through his Word. Pieper did not ignore the fact that theology had changed over time, that conflicting ideas arose concerning various doctrines, and that this ultimately caused divisions within Christianity. However, “They are not the result of climatic influences, as some say, nor of racial differences, as others say…. Divisions in the Apostolic Church arose because men refused

120 Ibid., 1:129. 121 Ibid., 1:130. 122 Ibid., 1:130. 123 Ibid., 1:39. 47 to recognize the Word of the Apostles as the Word of God and offered the Church in the place of the Word of God their own human notions.”124 In other words, theology “progressed” and developed only as it fell away from God’s Word, since “whenever men set out to develop the doctrine, they invariably pervert and destroy the Christian doctrine.”125 Cultural contextualization, in Pieper’s mind, equated with apostasy because it infused the eternal with the temporal, namely human opinion. As Pieper reminded his students, the Christian theologian

“does not deal with human thoughts and opinions.”126

Since human words can capture divine truth through ectypal theology, theologians are capable of removing themselves from their context and reproducing that truth. Pieper advised seminarians that “what matters is that the words used [in theology] should not express any unscriptural ideas.”127 Moreover, he ought “to suppress his own thoughts about God and divine matters and put aside the thoughts of other men, deriving the doctrine exclusively from the Word of God, from Holy Scripture.”128 The beauty of Lutheranism was that it accomplished that.

Luther, according to Pieper, claimed that “It is inevitable…that our own thoughts intrude into our study of the high matters pertaining to God and divine things; he, too, found all sorts of notions arising in his mind, but God had granted him the grace to submerge all thoughts that were outside of Scripture.”129 Lutheran theologians ought to replicate Luther so that “his doctrine should be, as to its content, simply a reproduction of the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles, without any admixture of his own human views.”130 Appearances to the contrary, the

Reformation itself was not an instance of theological development. Rather, Luther and his

124 Ibid., 1:22-23. 125 Ibid., 1:133. 126 Ibid., 1:54. 127 Ibid., 1:42. 128 Ibid., 1:49. 129 Ibid., 1:57. 130 Ibid., 1:57. 48 contemporaries gave new expression to old doctrines, as Pieper believed always happened within church history as Christianity battled error. Pieper argued that “new formulations [in church history] did not develop or change the Christian doctrine. On the contrary, they maintained the old doctrine against new errors; employing them, the Church continued in the Word of

Christ.”131 The same occurred in the Reformation: “Nor did the Reformation in any way develop the Christian doctrine. It added nothing; it only extricated the old doctrine of Scripture out of the rubble of the popish doctrines of men and again taught and confessed the old doctrine.”132 Luther was not an original theologian; he simply reproduced pure, eternal, biblical doctrine.

Since Lutheran doctrine was biblical doctrine, and scriptural teachings could be pristinely captured through human words, the Book of Concord demanded allegiance because it faithfully reproduced divine truth. Therefore, confessional Lutheran theologians could not countenance ambiguity concerning one’s relationship to the Confessions. F. C. D. Wyneken, the second president of the Missouri Synod, made this clear in an 1855 sermon at a synodical district meeting in Chicago. Wyneken declared that “these Confessions bear witness to the truth clearly, plainly, and powerfully on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, against all the desires of , to the whole world.”133 Describing a Christian’s conversion, Wyneken continued: “The has revealed this truth to us in the midst of the burdens of troubled consciences as our only salvation.

Through the Word, the Spirit has borne witness to the truth in broken and troubled hearts. Our consciences are bound to the Word and therefore to the Confession of the Church.”134 According to Wyneken, one’s belief was created by the Holy Spirit through the power of the Word, and

131 Ibid., 1:131: 132 Ibid. 1:132. 133 Friedrich Wyneken, “How Can the Synod Remain United?”, in At Home in the House of My Fathers, ed. Matthew C. Harrison (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 386. 134 Ibid., 386-387 (emphasis mine). 49 therefore the Lutheran was obliged to adhere to scripture and the Confessions together. Because one believed the Word of God, one believed the Confessions. It was a combination deal.

Together, they provide “the peace of conscience, the peace of our souls, [and] the hope of eternal blessedness” as they point “poor, forlorn, and condemned men” to saving faith in Christ. Since the Confessions rearticulated biblical doctrine in every particularity, subscription to the confessions must be unconditional. As much as one cannot surrender faith in Christ, Wyneken argued, “neither can we let go of the most insignificant portion of the Confession because the entire series of the individual teachings of the faith are for us one chain. This chain not only binds our understanding in the truth, it binds our consciences and lives…. Therefore we hold fast to our Confession, as to our very life’s life.”135 The Book of Concord faithfully reproduced the system of doctrine found in the Bible. Therefore, while the Confessions themselves could not save you, its teachings drew you close to God by clarifying the Word and illuminating its doctrines.

“Unconditional subscription” became the byword for confessional Lutherans in the West.

Walther, Wyneken, Pieper, and other confessional Lutherans demanded that “true” Lutherans agree with every point of doctrine noted in the Confessions. To them, this was commonsensical, since the Confessions were true because the Bible was true. As Pieper said in an 1888 conference address, “in doctrine we do not err. We are rather inerrant, insofar as and because we stand upon God’s Word, as it sounds. We speak as God’s Word speaks.”136 Lutheran doctrine was inerrant because it was eternal, a status which is borrowed from God’s eternal Word. If Lutheran doctrine “consists of repeating what God has previously spoken to us,” then challenging

Lutheranism’s unique truth calls into question the scripture’s clarity. Pieper believed that “the

135 Ibid., 387. 136 Francis Pieper, “On Unity in the Faith,” in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 583 (emphasis in the original). 50 Holy Scriptures are clear and plain for all Christians, not merely for pastors. All articles of the faith are revealed in passages of Scripture to which both the scholar and the unlearned have open access…. He who would deny unity in the faith must also deny that the Holy Scriptures are clear.”137 Lutheranism’s status as the pure faith of the Word left no room for doubt or questioning.

Within this theological system, adherence to the Book of Concord became a bellwether of one’s belief in the Bible. In Christian Dogmatics, Pieper argued that “from the attitude which one takes toward the Symbols of the Lutheran Church we learn whether he knows and accepts the Scripture doctrine or does not accept it.”138 His teacher, C. F. W. Walther, concurred and argued that the Confessions served as a safeguard for the church because of their relationship with the Bible. In an 1858 district convention essay, C. F. W. Walther argued that all called workers in the Missouri Synod must subscribe to the Confessions unconditionally “because”

(quia) they agree with scripture rather than “insofar as” (quatenus) the doctrines comport with the Bible. Walther could not abide quatenus subscription because it prevented churches from knowing where their pastor stood.139 According to Walther, demanding that its ministers unconditionally (quia) subscribe to the Confessions allowed the church to “convince itself that its teachers really possess the orthodox understanding of Scripture and the same pure, unadulterated faith as the church” and keep false teachers out of Missouri Synod pulpits.140

Applying the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, proponents of quatenus subscription argued that it was enough to claim that the Bible would be the criterion by which

137 Ibid., 582 (emphasis in the original). 138 Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:358. 139 Concerning different forms of confessional subscription within Lutheranism, see Charles P. Arand, Testing the Boundaries. Since this dissertation examines on the Western tradition of American confessional Lutheranism, this chapter is focusing on quia subscription, which is practiced by the Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, and Evangelical Lutheran Synod. 140 C. F. W. Walther, Church Fellowship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015), 18. 51 they would judge the Confessions. Walther deemed that insufficient. Such as a pledge amounted to a confession that the pastor would teach “according to his conscience and opinions” rather than Scripture or, obviously, the Confessions.141 The Book of Concord prevented that by providing an objective standard by which a minister’s orthodoxy could be judged. This was only possible because the Confessions were inerrant. Walther declared that “if error should really be found in our Symbols, we would be the first to pass the death sentence on them. But we defy the whole world to point out an error in doctrine in our Book of Concord.”142 The Confessions stood alongside scripture as a common judge because of their shared inerrancy. Therefore, one could not conditionally subscribe to the Book of Concord without calling scripture into the question.

Refusing to mince words, Walther thought that “They seek to point out that the voice of our spiritual mother in her public Confessions is in part the voice of error. But they will demonstrate nothing more than that they are bastards who, because they do not believe the holy divine

Scriptures, besmirch the Church as a temptress who confesses what she has found in the

Scriptures as her heart’s faith.”143 To deny the Book of Concord was to deny the Bible.

Confessional Lutherans do not claim that the Book of Concord is scriptural. However, functionally it serves a similar role. Due to Reformation polemics, the Book of Concord casted itself as theologically conservative by defining itself against “radical” Anabaptists on the one hand and Catholic “innovations” on the other. Rather than taking either of those approaches, the

Confessions clung to the Word, which they claimed to faithfully reproduce. The Book of

Concord articulated its theological methodology in terms of collection. The confessors simply accumulated biblical doctrines, crafted them into a coherent system, and rearticulated it. There

141 Ibid., 19. 142 Ibid., 22. 143 Ibid., 22. 52 was no originality but simple reproduction. This methodology was adopted and perpetuated by

Francis Pieper, F. C. D. Wyneken, and C. F. W. Walther as they constructed confessional

Lutheranism in the United States. Together, despite the Book of Concord’s claims about itself, they granted inerrancy to the book because they believed that it pristinely rearticulated the doctrines found in the Bible, which were a finished product requiring no further development over the course of history. This theological perspective, completely foreign to North America, would guide confessional Lutheran reactions to their new evangelical neighbors in the West.

“Enthusiasts”: C. F. W. Walther, the Confessions, and the Methodists

From a confessional Lutheran standpoint, the Book of Concord is neither simply an abstract theology textbook nor generic creedal statements that define denominational distinctiveness. Rather, as discussed above, it is the Word of God pristinely rearticulated. While it itself is not eternal, its doctrines are. The Confessions’ timelessness makes them applicable to any situation that Lutheran churches may encounter. This was the case with the Missouri Synod, which established itself in the Mississippi River Valley in the mid-nineteenth century. When the

Saxons settled in the Midwest, they were not alone. Surrounded by Methodists, Baptists, and other evangelical Protestants, Lutheran ministers felt besieged. As they sought to understand and judge their new environment, they turned to the Confessions as their guide. Much as Joseph

Smith reimagined the western frontier by inscribing biblical geography upon Missouri, C. F. W.

Walther and other Missouri Synod pastors interpreted their new religious surroundings through the lens of the Book of Concord. In particular, Walther applied Lutheran polemics aimed at

53 sixteenth century Anabaptists to his Methodist counterparts, labeling them “enthusiasts.”144 Since the Confessions consisted of God’s timeless truths, they were as relevant to nineteenth century

Missouri as they were in sixteenth century Germany.

Walther worked as creatively with the Confessions as he did with scripture, partially because the line separating the two, as has been discussed, was quite thin. He did his job as a minister by proclaiming the Word to his people and by inserting them into that narrative. In other words, the minister’s role was to apply the eternal Word autobiographically to himself and his congregants. Walther advised seminarians that “when a preacher proclaims what he has often experienced in his own heart, he will easily find the right words to speak convincingly to his hearers.”145 Immediacy was key to Walther’s theory of homiletics. As a “doctor of souls,” the preacher was speaking to his entire audience by proclaiming the Word to them and their current situation. It was not enough for the Missouri Synod minister to be an expert on scripture and dogmatics. Rather, “he must also understand how to give each soul in his audience the very thing it needs…. Preach in such a way that people in the congregation would think: ‘He means me.’”146

Through his work, the minister commenced a dialogue between God and his people.

Walther’s sense of immediacy was not original to him; he borrowed it from Martin

Luther. Describing Luther’s theology of the Word, Robert Kolb notes that “everything began and begins with God talking, and he talks through human beings as the instruments of his grace in oral, written, and sacramental forms.”147 God works through ministers as “Christians bridge the

144 A full examination of C. F. W. Walther and his role in guiding Missouri Synod theology is found in Chapter Two. This section analyzes Walther’s use of the Confessions within his historical context in order to illustrate the role that the Confessions play within the confessional Lutheran canon at a practical level. 145 C. F. W. Walther, : How to Read and Apply the Bible, A Reader’s Edition, trans. Christian C. Tiews (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2010), 125. 146 Ibid., 60. 147 Robert Kolb, Martin Luther and the Enduring Word of God: The Wittenberg School and Its Scripture-Centered Proclamation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 41. 54 historical gap and existentially share with one another the benefits” of salvation.148 Luther employed a “theology of contemporaneity.”149 Again describing Luther’s homiletics, Kolb writes that “what connected Wittenberg with Jerusalem was a two-way highway. Only a permeable membrane lay between contemporary Saxony and ancient Palestine.”150 Viewing the Word as being contemporary with believers here and now, Luther believed that “what happened historically in terms of time, when Christ came…is what happens individually each day in the spiritual life of every Christian, in whom the time of the law and the time of grace are experienced as going back and forth all the time.”151 Though not all the Word was applicable to a believer’s present situation in his or her life, it was always relevant because of its eternal nature.

Because the Word, like God, was beyond the construct of time, it was always true. The minister’s role was to make this crystal clear to his congregants through his sermon.

Walther’s homiletical approach correlates with anthropologist Susan Friend Harding’s analysis of Christian fundamentalist preaching in the United States. Focusing on fundamentalist theories of language, Harding claimed that “Preachers ‘stand in the gap’ between the language of the Christian Bible and the language of everyday life” as they “enabled fundamentalists to know

God’s updated will for them.”152 “Preachers convert the ancient recorded speech of the Bible once again into spoken language, translating it into local theological and cultural idioms and placing present events inside the of Biblical stories.”153 Through sermons and conversations, fundamentalist ministers operate as God’s oracles as they preach the Word and

148 Ibid., 53. 149 Timothy Maschke, “Contemporaneity: A Hermeneutical Perspective in Martin Luther’s Work,” in Ad fonts Lutheri: Toward the Recovery of the Real Luther, Essays in Honor of Kenneth Hagen’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Timothy Maschke, et. al. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 165-182. 150 Kolb, Martin Luther and the Enduring Word, 109. 151 Ibid., 109. 152 Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 12. 153 Ibid., 12. 55 make it present to their audience.154 Recounting an experience in which she was witnessed to by a preacher, Harding notes that the minister entered her into a dialogue that spanned across time

(“between Jesus and , himself and me, Isaac and Abraham, and the disciples”) as he attempted to convert her.155 Modern fundamentalist ministers integrate their audiences into the biblical narrative so that there is a continuum that crosses millennia to unite the apostles with twenty-first century believers. Therefore, Walther’s construction of immediacy is not unique. Rather, what makes him exceptional in American religious history is what he made immediate – the Lutheran Confessions.

When Walther and his Saxon compatriots arrived in the Midwest, they were surrounded by Methodists, who had made their presence in the Mississippi River valley region official in

1803, when the first circuit rider was stationed in .156 They quickly rose to prominence.

By 1850, according to historian John Wigger, 34% of American church members were

Methodists, and many resided on the western frontier.157 Rebelling against ’s double and limited atonement, Methodists, following their founder John Wesley, taught that humans were granted which allowed them to choose whether or not they would accept Jesus and follow God.158 Methodist preachers assisted people’s decision-making

154 Ibid., 45. 155 Ibid., 50. 156 John D. Barnhardt, Jr., “The Rise of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Illinois from the Beginning to the Year 1832,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 12, no. 2 (July 1919), 166. Barnhardt’s article provides a detailed account of ’s rise to prominence in pioneer Illinois immediately preceding the arrival of the Saxon Lutheran emigrants in 1839. For broader surveys of antebellum Methodism, see Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800:The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); John Wigger, American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); and John H. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 157 John H. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 1. 158 Concerning Wesleyan understandings of salvation and conversion, see Kenneth J. Collins and John H. Tyson, eds., Conversion in the Wesleyan Tradition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001); Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 49-86; and Kenneth J. Collins, The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley’s Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997). 56 process through the use of revivals and other applications of popular religion. Wigger describes antebellum Methodism as “militant supernaturalism” due to the manner in which it blatantly relied upon people’s subjective religious experiences, such as prophecies and visions, to graft converts into the fold.159 Methodist worship was intensely emotional and unashamed of that fact, since the preachers “performed the gospel as much as they proclaimed it” through their highly theatric sermonizing.160 “While Calvinist-leaning evangelicals tried to badger and shame skeptics into submission,” historian Amanda Porterfield notes, “Methodists pleaded with them to release pent-up emotion, a practice that often released torrents of feeling interpreted as the power of

God.”161 John Wigger also described Methodism as an “enthusiastic religion” which “offer[ed] a more interactive faith in which the believer and God actively work together to meet life’s daily challenges and in which God communicates directly with the believer or community of believers.”162 C. F. W. Walther agreed with Wigger’s description of Methodism as

“enthusiastic,” and he was horrified by what he saw.

When Walther applied the term “enthusiasts” to Methodists, he picked a term that had a long, vibrant history within Lutheran polemics and was omnipresent in the Lutheran

Confessions. Martin Luther used the terms “enthusiasm,” “fanaticism,” and Schwärmerei as virtual synonyms applying to Protestants who disagreed with him. In particular, the terms applied to those associated with the . “Enthusiasm” derived from the Greek en theos, meaning “God within,” and implied that the person afflicted with “enthusiasm”

159 Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 115. See also Christopher C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 ( 2011): 88-114. 160 Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge: Press, 1990), 240. 161 Amanda Porterfield, Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 101. 162 Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 110. 57 believed that God spoke directly to himself or herself. However, Luther’s gift to German polemics was Schwärmerei, which “evoked bees swarming around a hive” or “a pack of hounds straying off the scent.”163 It did not stretch Luther’s imagination to apply the agricultural term to hordes of radicals desecrating sanctuaries, destroying statues, and otherwise creating chaos in the church by following their own lights rather than that of God’s objective Word. Thus, to be an

“enthusiast” was to be possessed of the devil, since one of was rebelling against God. Luther’s polemics were adopted by his successors, who propagated the term to denounce Anabaptists of various stripes, spiritual Christians such as the Schwenckfelders, and, in some cases, Reformed

Christians who refused to accept Christ’s real presence in ’s Supper.164

It is hardly surprising that the term appears frequently in the Lutheran Confessions.165

The Formula of Concord defines “enthusiasts” as “those who expect the heavenly illumination of the Spirit [celestial revelations] without the preaching of God’s Word.” Also, enthusiasts were those “who imagine that God without means, without the hearing of God’s Word, also without the use of the holy Sacraments, draws men to Himself, and enlightens, justifies and saves them.”166 Frequently condemnations of enthusiasm accompanied refutations of , as mentioned earlier in this chapter. Luther, of course, was not to be outdone by anyone in his application of the term. In one of the longer excurses in the Confessions utilizing the term,

Luther, in the Smalcald Articles, traced enthusiasm to the beginning of time, since Satan

“converted Adam and Eve into enthusiasts, and led them from the outward Word of God to

163 Anthony J. La Vopa, “The Philosopher and the ‘Schwärmer’: On the Career of a German Epithet from Luther to Kant,” Huntington Library Quarterly 60, no. 1/2 (1997): 88 164 Concerning the use of Schwärmerei by Lutheran orthodox theologians, see Thomas Kaufmann, “Proches étrangers. Aspects de la perception << Schwärmerei >> par les premiere orthodoxie luthérienne,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français 148 (Janvier-Février-Mars 2002): 47-79. 165 For a survey on the use of Schärmerei in the Confessions, see Paul L. Maier, “Fanaticism as a Theological Category in the Lutheran Confessions,” Concordia Theological Monthly 44, nos. 2-3 (July 1980): 173-181. 166 Concordia Triglotta, 789. 58 spiritualizing and self-conceit….”167 The Pope, Muhammad, and Thomas Münzer also joined

Adam and Eve has historical examples of enthusiasm.168

For Luther and his disciples, Schwärmerei was a polemical term used to denote epistemological boundaries and regulate emotion’s role in religion. Luther accused enthusiasts of relying upon their emotions and thus usurping the objective means through which God communicated with people – the Word and Sacraments. Reliance upon these two entities ostensibly removed subjectivity from the Christian’s religious experience and therefore extinguished the possibility of doubt. Feelings were immaterial to the Christian, Luther and his successors taught, because they were fickle and unreliable. The Word and Sacraments, however, revealed the truth of a human’s relationship with God, namely that he or she is justified by faith through grace and forgiven of his or her sins. As C. F. W. Walther would later teach, “do not forget that the blessedness of Christians is not based upon pleasant feelings but on the assurance that, despite the bitterest feelings imaginable, Christians are accepted by God.”169 Elsewhere,

Walther wrote: “If you are worried about not feeling grace – for which you earnestly long – that is proof that you are a true Christian. For people who desire to believe are already believers. For how could a person possible desire to believe something that he regards as untrue?”170

Schwärmerei, constantly wondering whether or not their sins were forgiven, based their faith on their feelings and emotions and drove unsuspecting souls into despair. Given the historical connotations of the term, it did not require much creativity for Walther to accuse Methodists of being Schwärmerei.

167 Ibid., 495. 168 Ibid., 495-497. 169 Walther, Law and Gospel, 347. 170 Ibid., 220. 59 Methodism attracted Walther’s ire throughout the course of his career.171 Writing to E. J.

M. Wege, a Lutheran parish pastor in Benton County, Missouri, in 1844, five years after his arrival in Missouri, Walther described it as “the form of the false church [in the last days], when, if possible, the elect would also be led into error.”172 He identified their “rotten spot” as “their zeal, their agitations, their convulsions, their seeming vitality their pressing and pushing, their manufacture of renewal and holiness.”173 All of the seemingly positive effects of Methodist revivalism were a mirage, since their rest is “not founded on the promise, on the Word, on

Christ, who justifies the ungodly who believe, but on certain experiences, on certain degrees of holiness, or, not at all infrequently, on remarkable dreams, visions, conversations with God and the holy angels, and similar things.”174 One hears strong echoes of the Formula of Concord’s definition of enthusiasm, and Walther soon connected the dots, declaring that the “rotten, moldy fruits” of Methodism was nothing more than the “the spirit of enthusiasm.”175 Walther concluded the letter by warning his correspondent, “Don’t judge by sensational results but according to the clear Word; otherwise you are lost.”176 In this letter, Walther provided the blueprint for his assault on Midwestern Methodism which he would carry out for the next four decades.

Methodists were modern enthusiasts.

Walther became even more explicit and damning in his critique as years passed, and they were omnipresent in his writings. A prime example are the essays that he delivered to Missouri

Synod conventions between 1873 and 1886. In these essays, Walther sought to prove the claim

171 For a survey of Walther’s relationship with Methodists, see Thomas Manteufel, “Walther and the Methodists,” in Soli Deo Gloria: Essays on C. F. W. Walther, In Memory of August R. Sueflow (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000), 99-109. 172 Carl S. Meyer, ed. and trans., Letters of C. F. W. Walther: A Selection (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 64. 173 Ibid., 65. 174 Ibid., 65. 175 Ibid., 66. 176 Ibid., 66. 60 that “The Doctrine of the Lutheran Church Alone Gives All Glory to God, an Irrefutable Proof

That Its Doctrine Alone Is True.”177 The obvious corollary of this statement is that other

Christian theologies do not give “all glory to God” and thus lack the fullness of truth. This theme provided Walther ample opportunities to take swipes at the Methodists. Lest one wonder about his feelings on the subject, Walther declared that enthusiasts attacked God’s glory, which “is exactly what the devil desires” as he “seeks to darken the Word that reveals this, yes, to obliterate it [the message of salvation] through enthusiasts and false Lutherans.”178 Methodists and related churches “darkened the Word” by focusing on oneself for salvation rather than

Christ. Walther believed that “All false churches give proof that they are false when their primary purpose is to give honor to men. The Methodists, for example, place the glory and preeminence of their religion primarily in this, that they are supposedly the most holy and pious people that can be found anywhere in the world…. [W]ith this claim, they publicly disassociate themselves from our great God and from His sole rule in heaven and on earth.”179 Methodism, like Catholicism, is a works-righteousness religion that makes one earn salvation.180

Walther labeled Methodism a works-righteousness religion because “The enthusiasts do not recognize any Means of Grace.”181 Instead, they relied upon their emotions. Walther equated a subjective basis for religion with one’s works, because one’s emotions were internal and, ultimately, one focused on personal actions as external confirmation for those subjective experiences. Walther argued that “the error of the Methodists and other sects, [is] that they believe God gives grace, but that man has the power to accept it. According to that, it is not God

177 C. F. W. Walther, All Glory to God (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016), 1. 178 Ibid., 74. 179 Ibid., 116. 180 Ibid., 116. 181 Ibid., 117. 61 who gives faith…. As soon as one ascribes to man the least part in the work of salvation, one robs it from God.”182 “The Lutheran church,” on the other hand, “says not only that we are saved alone by grace, not only that this grace has been merited for us by Christ, the Son of God and

Redeemer of the world, not only that we receive this grace by faith alone, but also this, that our dear God has established definite means into which He has placed this grace and through which

He offers it to us. These means are the Word of God, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.”183

However, because the enthusiasts reject those means of grace, they look to other, less certain means.

In the process, “the enthusiasts create[d] new means of grace.”184 For instance, “They lay more stress on their ‘anxious bench’ than on Holy Baptism, and want to be saved by their own means and not by the means God has ordained. One could hardly believe that a true Christian could be among them, since they defame the honor of God.”185 The Methodists “make their anxious bench and even their meetings and camp meetings into means of grace.”186 For that reason, “we are not to judge them but rather to pity them. They stand under God’s judgment.”187 Walther proved this to his readers by quoting from Martin Luther’s critique of

Catholics, who committed the same sin. Luther wrote that “since the devil is always God’s ape, trying to imitate all God’s things and to improve on them, he also tried his luck with external things purported to make man holy.”188 In Walther’s mind, medieval holy water and blessed bells were equivalent to camp meetings and anxious benches. All were used to replace the objective means which God had designated to comfort the elect with certainty. Relying on the anxious

182 Ibid., 94. 183 Ibid., 117. 184 Ibid., 121. 185 Ibid., 101. 186 Ibid., 122. 187 Ibid., 101. 188 Martin Luther, On the Councils and the Church, AE 41:168, qtd. In Walther, All Glory to God, 122. 62 bench and other “new means” produces emotional uncertainty about one’s salvation that could lead to one’s damnation. “Anyone who does not take it [God’s grace] from these [the Word and

Sacraments], his justification is pure imagination, only froth and sham,” Walther argued. “Even if he wept bloody tears for his sins and laughed as the angels in heaven in his feeling of bliss and security, he does not have justification; he only imagines that he has it.”189 Walther scorned those who went to great lengths to prove to themselves that they had God’s grace: “Even though a man fasts to death in order to gain God’s grace, he is only the devil’s martyr. No, whoever is thirsty, let him go to the spring of water and drink, namely to Word and .”190

Disregarding God’s objective means of grace in favor of enthusiasm potentially had eternal ramifications.

As Walther scanned the Midwestern religious landscape, enthusiasts were everywhere.

His opposition to Methodists and other evangelicals is not particularly noteworthy. Lutheran theology is substantially different than that of Methodism, and so it is unsurprising that conflict would arise. However, the rhetoric that Walther used to dismiss Methodism is important because it illustrates the authoritative role of the Confessions in the construction of the confessional

Lutheran worldview. Walther applied sixteenth century Lutheran polemics aimed primarily at

Anabaptists against the Methodists, the modern Schwärmerei invading his Lutheran Zion. He saw an exact correlation between the two. Both the Anabaptists and the Methodists relied upon dreams, visions, and other emotional experiences apart from God’s designated means of grace, or the Word and Sacraments. Instead, they innovated and thus, like Catholics, created a works- righteousness religion which relied upon one’s efforts and feelings rather than the objective truth communicated by God. Walther saw the parallels and replicated the Confessions’ language.

189 Ibid., 81. 190 Ibid., 81. 63 Because the Book of Concord replicated the doctrine found in God’s Word, it shared contemporaneity with the Bible. Thus, the two-way highway that Robert Kolb recognized connected biblical Jerusalem to Reformation-era Wittenberg continued onward to the nineteenth- century Midwest and beyond. In Walther’s worldview, American Methodists entered into an ancient narrative as yet one more example of how Satan apes God and tries to steal his glory.

The Book of Concord proved to him that “there is nothing new under the sun,” and it provided him with the ammunition to combat Satan’s minions.

“What does this mean?”: Luther’s Small Catechism and Devotional Use of the Confessions

By 1997, Garrison Keillor had already built his career by gently lampooning Upper

Midwesterners on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Through the fictional central

Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, Keillor told stories of the peculiarities of small town life, and inevitably many of his stories returned to Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, which for thirty years was pastored by David Ingqvist (who eventually departed Lake Wobegon to serve as the pastor at the Mall of America). However, Keillor wanted to learn more about his subjects. Not

Lutheran himself, he participated in an online chat labeled “What Garrison Keillor Needs to

Know About Lutherans and Catholics” in which he queried a few of his Catholic and Lutheran fans about their experiences in their traditions. As the chat continued, one of the fans, using the moniker “Booklady,” reminisced: “As a Lutheran child, I remember memorizing passages from the Bible. They were from Luthers [sic] Small Catechism for childeren [sic]. Then you had to memorize the part that started What this means to me....”191 This piqued Keillor’s interest, and he

191 “What Garrison Keillor Needs to Know About Lutherans and Catholics,” A Prairie Home Companion, 8 October 1997. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/hodgepodge/chats_1997/100897_lutherans.shtml. 64 responded, “I'm not familiar with Luther's Small Catechism.”192 When he did not get an immediate response, he pressed the point: “Can anyone clarify for me, Luther's Small

Catechism?”193 Another participant in the chat, “S_nelson,” replied that “All good Lutherans memorized Luther's Small Catechism and had to recite it back for catechization, sometimes called public questioning, prior to Confirmation. It was a nightmare time for Lutherans.”194

Fascinated, Keillor continued to ask questions, and his informants relayed stories of the traditional two year confirmation process in which Lutheran youth are required to memorize the

Small Catechism and, in some cases, pass public examination before the entire congregation during the confirmation ritual that grants them full membership into the congregation.

While it is remarkable that Garrison Keillor – the most famous Lutheran humorist who is not Lutheran – had never heard of the Small Catechism despite his career’s reliance on

Lutheranism, it is also interesting that the catechism was central to their memories of their

Lutheran upbringing and their (sometimes traumatic) post-baptismal initiation into the faith.

While the Ninety-Five Theses is the document that Lutherans celebrate on Reformation Sunday and theologians point to the Augsburg Confession as the faith’s defining document, lay

Lutherans are most familiar with Luther’s Small Catechism. Probably more than any other

Protestant tradition, Lutherans, regardless of their denomination’s location on the theological spectrum, have preserved catechization by memorization, and they continue to use a nearly five century old catechism written by Luther himself and enshrined in the Book of Concord. This reflects its oversized role in Lutheranism. The Formula of Concord described the catechism “as the Bible of the laity, wherein everything is comprised which is treated in greater length in Holy

192 Ibid. 193 Ibid. 194 Ibid. 65 Scripture, and is necessary for a Christian man to know for his salvation.”195 Like the rest of the confessional documents, the Small Catechism derives its authority through its repristination of biblical doctrine, and, as “the Bible of the laity,” it is the focus of Lutheran devotional practice beyond basic memorization. Because of its status in relation to the Word, Lutheran theologians encourage laity to study the catechism, pray it, and worship God through it through unique variations of the Divine Service that are constructed around the catechism. Within confessional

Lutheranism, the Small Catechism is not simply a compendium of doctrine; rather, it is a gateway to God.

Martin Luther composed the Small and Large Catechisms to combat doctrinal ignorance amongst the German laity. In 1526, Luther organized the Saxon Church Visitation, in which a number of ecclesiastical and political leaders visited local parishes and assessed their spiritual condition. Unfortunately, the results were grim. The visitors reported that laypeople were grossly ignorant of doctrine and that many clergy were morally and theologically challenged.196 To rectify the situation, Luther wrote the Small Catechism for the laity and the Large Catechism for ministers. The catechisms were intended to be simultaneously instructional and devotional, as were many medieval catechisms.197 Luther organized his catechism by first discussing the Ten

Commandments, which were then followed by the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. The catechism’s structure was original, since traditionally the Creed preceded the commandments.

Luther sought to shape the catechism around his conception of the Christian life. Using the analogy of a sick person, Luther thought that the ill individual must “first diagnose the illness and find a prescription for cure, then find the medicine which will restore to health, and then

195 Concordia Triglotta, 777. 196 Kolb, et. al., 67. 197 Ibid., 74. 66 seek and obtain the medicine.”198 The Law provided the diagnosis, the Gospel narrative found in the Creed prescribed the cure, and the Lord’s Prayer pointed the petitioner to God and saving medicine. The catechism, of course, was very simple. Luther followed a clause from the Ten

Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and basic statements about the sacraments with the question “What does this mean?”,, which was subsequently followed by a concise explanation. Luther attempted to make the catechism autobiographical. Not only did the organization reflect the Christian’s life, but the language he used did so as well. Luther constantly used first person language to emphasize doctrine’s relevance to the individual and to practical situations. This enhanced the catechism’s devotional nature.

Luther believed that the catechisms were relevant to everyone, including himself, whom he described as “a child and pupil of the Catechism.”199 Encouraging everyone to utilize the catechisms, he noted that the catechisms drove Satan away by focusing Christians on the Word

(“Undoubtedly, you will not start a stronger incense or other fumigation against the devil than by being engaged upon God’s commandments and words, and speaking, singing, or thinking of them”) and he condemned those “supercilious, presumptuous saints, who are unwilling to read and study the Catechism daily….”200 People listened. Luther’s Small Catechism quickly gained popularity, which has maintained through the twenty-first century. Over the years, in a sense, the catechism grew. Most Lutheran church bodies publish their own editions of the Small Catechism, which is accompanied by a section entitled “Explanation.” The “Explanation” expands upon the

Luther’s material in the catechism, asks additional questions that break down Luther’s thought, offers proof texts for doctrinal claims, provides introductions which help the reader to understand

198 Ibid., 76. 199 Concordia Triglotta, 569. 200 Ibid., 569 and 571. 67 the catechism’s relevance, and often includes after each section.201 The “Explanation” explicitly transforms the catechism into a devotional . It is not confessional; only the text of the catechism itself is considered confessionally binding upon a person. Rather, the

“Explanation” enhances the catechism, and it is variable based upon a synod’s theological priorities.

For instance, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS), a small, historically Norwegian confessional Lutheran denomination based in southern Minnesota, begins their catechism’s

“Explanation” with two added chapters on the nature of the Bible and the Law. The chapter on the Bible begins with an introduction extolling the scripture’s importance for the believer: “Is it possible to find happiness on this earth where there are so many troubles and problems? Many people claim to have found happiness, yet many of these same people remain in the power of death and the devil. But God wants you, His child, to be both happy on earth and blessed in heaven. For this reason He wants you to know His will.”202 The introductory text not only teaches the necessity of scripture (i.e., to know God’s will), but also the text directly addresses the reader and makes doctrine practical by emphasizing God’s love for the reader. Following the questions and answers of the “Explanation,” the chapter on the Bible closes with a meditation on

God’s Word: “As we mature in faith, we want to study the Bible in greater detail, in order that we may understand and confess the faith in which we have been baptized. In this study we use

Luther’s Small Catechism because it is a summary of the chief teachings of the Bible. Do we

201 Despite the omnipresence of the Small Catechism in Lutheranism, there is little scholarship on post-Luther developments of the catechism or comparing different church bodies’ “Explanation” sections. For a study of various editions of the catechism and explanation published by the Missouri Synod, see David Aaron Fiala, “Martin Luther’s Small Catechism: A History of English Language Editions and Explanations Prepared by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 89, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 19-54. Concerning editions of the Small Catechism prepared in America prior to 1850, see Arthur C. Repp, Jr., Luther’s Catechism Comes to America: Theological Effects on the Issues of the Small Catechism Prepared In or For America Prior to 1850, ATLA Monograph Series (Landham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1982). 202 An Explanation of Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism (Mankato, MN: Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 2001), 33. 68 have the same attitude toward the study of God’s Word that Jesus had (Luke 2:41-52)?”203 The conclusion makes it clear to the student that the Small Catechism is a trustworthy guide because it reflects biblical teaching and that its goal is to spur the student’s devotion to Bible study. This is followed by a hymn text (“God’s Word is our great heritage…”), which closes the devotion.

The heart of the “Explanation,” of course, is the question and answers that the synod’s editors provide the student. Following the introduction and a restatement of the relevant section of Luther’s text, the editors provide numerous questions that analyze Luther’s claims. The questions cater to the denomination’s interpretation of Lutheranism and exhibit its particular concerns. For instance, in the chapter on the Bible, a question about the Bible’s verbal inerrancy is asked and answered. Later in the catechism, in the chapter regarding the Creed’s reference to the “Holy Christian Church,” the ELS editors advise their catechumens to “avoid all false teaching churches and all other organizations that profess a religion which is false. (See

Dictionary on Unionism and Lodge.)”204 The ELS takes advantage of the opportunity to warn their students against various fraternal lodges, as “those with chaplains, prayers, religious rites, and/or teachings which are contrary to Scripture are to be avoided.”205 Also, in the chapter concerning “The Office of the Keys and Confession,” the editors bluntly tell students that “The

Bible forbids women to serve as pastors.”206 A more liberal church body would not include any of those statements in their editions of the catechism.

The addition of the “Explanation” to Luther’s text makes the Small Catechism a uniquely fluid document. The text of the catechism itself, written by Luther, does not chance except in order to clarify the translation. However, the “Explanation” does. The variability of the

203 Ibid., 36. 204 Ibid., 140. 205 Ibid., 228. 206 Ibid., 195. 69 “Explanation” allows the catechism to be understood as perpetually relevant. In other words, the

Small Catechism is timeless because it is a living document. It can change without losing its reliability because it is founded upon the eternal Word of God. Since the Catechism pristinely reproduces biblical truth, it can apply it to modern issues (e.g., Freemasonry and unionism) that were inconceivable to Luther in 1529.

The Small Catechism’s devotional nature is further enhanced by pastors and theologians who treat it explicitly as a prayer book. While this is noted in most editions of the Small

Catechism through the “Explanation,” pastors have published alternative versions of the catechism or devotional manuals aimed at teaching the laity how to pray it. As an example of the former, the ELS publishes a small booklet, I Pray the Catechism: Luther’s Small Catechism in prayer, which replaces all of Luther’s questions and answers with prayers relating to the relevant articles of the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer.207 On the other hand, Missouri

Synod seminary professor John T. Pless’ s Praying Luther’s Small Catechism provides a theologically intensive yet devotional commentary on the Small Catechism that teaches readers how to pray the catechism.

Pless begins by noting that “The catechism functioned, for Luther, as a book of prayer.”208 However, “Such praying is serious business; it is not mindless meditation or wordless impulses to connect with a higher spiritual power.”209 Rather, it is spiritual warfare against Satan.

Thus, echoing Luther’s comments about his catechisms, the Small Catechism becomes a

Christian’s weapon in the cosmic contest between God and the devil. This is possible because

207 I Pray the Catechism: Luther’s Small Catechism in prayer (Mankato, MN: ELS Board for Parish Education & Youth, n.d.). 208 John T. Pless, Praying Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016), 1. 209 Ibid., 2. 70 “The power of the catechism is the power of the Word of God….”210 Pless believes that “Each petition is used as a foundation and platform for praying,” and he proceeds to prove his case through the remainder of the book. Drawing upon a range of theologians, Pless analyzes the various commandments in order to illustrate how all have sinned and yet are recipients of God’s gifts. Summing up the section on the Ten Commandments, Pless writes that

God threatens punishment to those who will not fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, but He promises grace and every blessing to those who cling to Him by faith in His Son. It is only through faith that the Commandments are fulfilled and believers are enabled to call upon the name of the Lord in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Where God is feared, loved, and trusted above all things, lips are unsealed and tongues are loosed for prayer, which the Father delights to hear and answer.211

Treating the commandments as “the Christian’s prayer list,” Pless tells the reader that the commandments are an invitation to pray and trust in God, because humans in of themselves are incapable of fulfilling the Law.212 He treats the remaining sections of the catechism in the same manner – as a call to prayer. “If the Creed is the summation of God’s Word to us in the trinitarian gospel,” Pless writes, “then the Lord’s Prayer give voice to the faith created by that

Word.”213 Ultimately, Pless argues that Lutherans ought to approach the Small Catechism understanding that Luther intended for it to be a prayer book. Since the catechism reflects God’s

Word, Lutherans should react to it the same way they react to the Word – pray. Pless’s commentary aims to provide the intellectual and theological material to spur the Lutheran’s soul into action.

The Small Catechism’s use as devotional material is most apparent through its conversion into a form of the Divine Service, the Lutheran liturgy. This, perhaps, illustrates confessional

210 Ibid., 2. 211 Ibid., 33. 212 Ibid., 15. 213 Ibid., 146. 71 Lutherans’ reverence for the catechism, given the high regard Lutheran theology holds for the

Divine Service. For Lutherans, “The liturgy is, first and foremost, the activity of God who is serving us with gifts…. Here we see the origin of Luther’s word for worship – Gottesdienst –

God serving the world with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation through Word and

Sacrament.”214 In other words, worship is not simply humanity’s obligation to God or fulfilling one of his commandments. Rather, it is an eschatological event in which “The saints in heaven and the worshiping congregation on earth manifest their unity in the one liturgy” as God “serves” the church with his grace through the Word and Sacraments. Time is defied, the boundary between heaven and earth is negated, and God speaks. Therefore, the liturgy that guides the

Divine Service is not treated lightly. As will be discussed later in this dissertation, some of the most fervent disagreements among confessional Lutherans regard the liturgy, worship styles, and hymnals. To imprint the Small Catechism onto the Divine Service is not small matter.

If the Small Catechism is used liturgically, most likely it will be used in conjunction with

Confirmation Sunday, when young confirmands, eighth grade students, complete their two year study of Lutheran doctrine (through the Small Catechism) and are accepted as fully participating members of the congregation.215 This was the case on April 30, 2017, when Faith Lutheran

Church, a Wisconsin Synod congregation in Tallahassee, Florida, celebrated Youth Confirmation

Sunday.216 The pastor, who designed the liturgy, did not duplicate the Small Catechism in the

Divine Service. Rather, he utilized sections of the catechism in places where they were appropriate within the traditional confines of the liturgy. For example, while Luther explains the

214 Arthur A. Just, Jr., Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2008), 23. 215 Within confessional Lutheran circles, confirmation also allows the member to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Previously, they were not allowed access to the sacrament. Therefore, Lutheran are several years older than Catholics when they take their “first .” 216 The following description is based on the service’s bulletin, a copy of which is in the author’s possession. 72 office of the keys and absolution at the end of the Small Catechism, in the Divine Service at

Faith Lutheran Church, the catechetical section was moved forward to the very beginning of the service, since confession of sins and absolution consist of the first part of the Divine Service.

Also, the pastor did not “cut and paste” Luther’s text into the liturgical dialogue between the minister and congregation. Rather, he combined the original text with paraphrases of the catechism as well as biblical references taken either from the Small Catechism or the Wisconsin

Synod’s “Explanation.”

Following Luther’s intention for his catechism, the catechetical Divine Service narrated the Christian life. After reviewing the Ten Commandments in order to prove the congregation’s sinfulness, the liturgy turned to the objectivity of the Word and Sacraments as the locus for a

Christian’s confidence. Following the confession of sins, the pastor absolved the congregation by declaring “God, our heavenly Father, has been merciful to us. ‘When the kindness and love of

God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He has saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit’

(Titus 3:4-5). Let us rejoice in God’s mercy and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit’s washing through the waters of baptism!” From baptism, the liturgy moved onto the catechism’s description of the Lord’s Supper.217 Following a sermon based upon the confirmands’ biblical verses, the service concluded with the Lord’s Prayer interspersed with Luther’s explanation from the Small Catechism.

The confirmation Sunday service at Faith Lutheran Church exemplifies the practicality and relevance of the Small Catechism within confessional Lutheranism. The catechism was spliced seamlessly into the Divine Service without altering the form of the liturgy. While the

217 In Lutheran confirmation ceremonies, the confirmands choose a bible passage that they find particularly meaningful and hope to use as a guide over the course of their Christian lives. 73 words changed, the content did not. Rather, the catechism served several simultaneous purposes: showing the congregation the accomplishment of the children who had studied the catechism, reminding Lutheran congregants of their faith’s teachings, exposing non-Lutheran family members and guests to Lutheran theology, providing a commentary on the Divine Service, and narrating the Christian life. More importantly, though, the Small Catechism became the Divine

Service. Insofar as, according to Lutheran liturgical theology, God speaks to his church through the Divine Service, God spoke through the catechism. Furthermore, since human agency is denied within the context of the liturgy and it is seen purely as God’s active service to his passive people, God worked through the catechism to give grace as the Small Catechism became the means through which the Word was proclaimed and God (through the pastor) offered absolution to sinners. The Small Catechism became the means through which heaven came to earth and the veil beyond God and humanity thinned.

As the most actively used confessional document, the Small Catechism provides a glimpse into the practical uses of the Confessions within confessional Lutheranism. As a living document with an evolving “Explanation,” the catechism is always relevant because it teaches seemingly timeless truths to its students. The catechism also draws people to prayer, as various manuals written by pastors guide laypeople to meditate on Luther’s words and the associated scriptures and use them to inspire their prayers. Finally, the catechism serves as God’s vehicle of grace when it is transformed into a version of the Divine Service. The voices of Luther, the pastor, the congregants, the saints triumphant, and God himself all become mingled in a cosmic dialogue that grants grace and forgiveness to Lutherans. Much as the divide between heaven and earth diminishes through the Divine Service, the difference between the Word and Confessions likewise becomes porous through Lutheran devotional practice.

74 Conclusion

On Sunday night, October 25, 1930, 17,000 people descended upon the Arena in St.

Louis to attend the performance of Truth Triumphant, a pageant commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. Several hours long, the pageant recounted the story of humanity’s quest for truth. Beginning Act I with in Egypt, the cast, consisting of approximately 3,000 extravagantly costumed volunteers, narrated salvation history through

Babylonia, where truth was veiled by sin and evil. Finally, with the birth of Jesus truth was unveiled for all the world to see as the Concordia Seminary sang hymns. Act II

(“The Test of Truth”) commenced with Jesus’s trials before the high priests and Pilate and his crucifixion. However, to the strains of the Lutheran standard “Jesus Christ, my sure defense,” the open tomb was revealed. The tale did not end with Jesus. Instead, the pageant continued to portray the martyrdoms of and other early Christians as well as the persecution suffered by early Christians in Germany (twenty-five “heathen” German warriors danced and sang and ten “Wodan priests” “joined in the revelry” while St. Boniface attempted to preach).

Finally, the Reformation occurred. Martin Luther arrived on the scene, and, as he nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the church door, the choir broke out in “A Mighty Fortress is our

God.” However, Satan still attacked truth, as the four horsemen of the apocalypse rode across the stage on live horses as the pageant transitioned to Emperor Charles V demanding that the

Lutherans recant their faith at Augsburg. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, “The climax of color and movement came in the scene in which the princely signers of the Augsburg Confession placed their work before Charles V. For a half-hour, noblemen, mounted knights, imperial guardsmen, lords and ladies-in-waiting, black-robed theologians and red-robed cardinals filled the parade ground and debated scripture and tradition on the raised platform where the Emperor

75 sat.”218 Following the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, the pageant transitioned to the final scene, which portrayed the benefits of truth, such as scientific advancements (e.g., Johannes

Kepler), musical genius (e.g., and Moses Mendelsohn), and political liberty, represented by the odd trinity of Gustavus Adolphus, George Washington, and Abraham

Lincoln.219

Truth Triumphant encapsulated the Book of Concord’s role within confessional

Lutheranism. The pageant contextualized the Augsburg Confession as a central event in salvation history alongside Moses’s prophetic ministry, the Babylonian Captivity, and Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection. In other words, it is a salvifically significant event that witnesses to

God’s constant protection of the elect. God’s Word is always triumphant, and the Augsburg

Confession proves that. The Missouri Synod, the pageant’s organizer and sponsor, went to great lengths and expense to present it, providing elaborate costumes, live horses, and numerous tableaux illustrating historic figures and scenes. Also, it is noteworthy that 17,000 Lutherans paid money to watch a several hour pageant that included a thirty minute theological debate between the Augsburg confessors and the emperor’s Catholic theologians. The pageant provides yet another illustration of the Book of Concord’s authoritative role within this community. God’s

Word and the Lutheran Confessions stand as eternal witnesses to divine truth.

The Book of Concord defines confessional Lutheranism in more ways than one. The

Confessions are more than statements of faith. They are the Word of God rearticulated. Because the confessors and later American Lutheran theologians like C. F. W. Walther and Francis Pieper argued that doctrine are eternal and capable of being collected and systematized, the Confessions

218 “Throngs Observe Anniversary of Lutheran Creed,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 27, 1930. 219 The above narrative is based on “5500 in Lutheran Pageant Witnessed by 17,000 at Arena,” St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, October 27, 1930; “Throngs Observe Anniversary of Lutheran Creed”; and Truth Triumphant program, Walter A. Maier papers, Concordia Historical Institute. 76 acquired derivative authority from the Bible. However, the distinction between the two is functionally permeable, as evidenced by Luther’s reference to his Small Catechism as the “Bible of the laity.” Theologically, the Bible supersedes the Confessions in authority, but the Book of

Concord does not fall too far behind. Moreover, they are the key through which the Bible is interpreted. Since the Confessions provide a pristine collection of biblical and apostolic doctrine, anything that disagrees with them likewise contradicts the Word. The Book of Concord clarifies the Bible and thus protects it from heresy and abuse. While Lutheran theology is clear concerning the relationship between the Bible and the Confessions, the Book of Concord maintains a functionally ambiguous relationship with the Bible in the Lutheran canon of authority.

Studying the Book of Concord’s role within confessional Lutheranism reminds scholars of the various sources of authority utilized by conservative Protestants alongside the Bible.

While all Protestants adhere to sola scriptura and argue that their teachings rest solely upon scripture, other authorities interact with the Bible as theology is constructed, confessed, and applied. All versions of Protestantism utilize tradition, and historians ought to analyze how tradition functions within them apart from insider theological claims. Examining the deference and reverence given to the Lutheran Confessions by their adherents reveals that the Book of

Concord maintains a privileged spot within the Lutheran canon, which is functionally addended by their presence. Confessional Lutherans are not unique in this regard, as they parallel contemporary American religious movements, such as Christian Science, as they wrestled with questions of theological authority and biblical interpretation. However, their application of the

Book of Concord to American religious life has resulted in reactions that distinguish confessional Lutherans from their neighbors, as Walther’s application of the epithet Schwärmerei

77 demonstrates. For confessional Lutheran denominations, the Confessions are constantly contemporary, and they create a “two-lane highway” that connects Jerusalem, Wittenberg, St.

Louis, Mankato, and points beyond. When Lutherans pray “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy

Word,” one wonders how expansive that conception of the Word really is.220 As C. F. W.

Walther would proclaim on the banner of every copy of Der Lutheraner, “God’s Word and

Luther’s doctrine now and forever more shall endure.”221

220 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (Mankato, MN: The Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 1996), 589:1. 221 Der Lutheraner, St. Louis, MO, June 21, 1892. 78 CHAPTER 2

“GOD’S WORD AND LUTHER’S DOCTRINE”: MARTIN STEPHAN, C. F. W. WALTHER, AND LUTHERAN PRIMITIVISM

In 1838 and 1839, Missouri was holy ground. It was Zion. In 1831, Joseph Smith received a revelation in Kirtland, Ohio, declaring that “if ye are faithful ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies. But, behold, I, the Lord, will hasten the city in its time, and will crown the faithful with joy and with rejoicing.”222 The result was a decade long quest to claim “the land of [their] inheritance,” which Smith believed would be the location of the future New

Jerusalem.223 Missouri not only held apocalyptic significance for Smith but also importance as the site of some of the earliest events in the biblical narrative. Missouri was home of the Garden of Eden as well as the valley to which Adam and Eve retired after their fall, Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Missouri was at the heart of Smith’s primitivist project through which he sought to restore lost truths, including those relating to the sacred nature of the North American continent. However, non-Mormon settlers in Missouri were less enthralled with Smith’s claims concerning their state.

In 1833 and 1838, the Latter Day Saints were expelled from their Missouri homes through mob violence, eventually forcing them across the Mississippi River to Commerce, Illinois.224

222 Doctrine and Covenants 52:42-43. 223 Grant Underwood, “Mormonism, Millenarianism, and Missouri,” in The Mormon Missouri Experience, ed. Thomas M. Spencer (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2010), 50-61. For more information on nineteenth century Mormon millenarianism, see Grant Underwood, The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993). 224 See Leland H. Gentry and Todd A. Compton, Fire and Sword: A History of the Latter-Day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-39 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2010), and Stephen C. LeSeuer, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1987). 79 Nevertheless, within Mormon theology, Missouri maintained its sacred significance, as the locus of Christ’s Second Coming. Missouri remained Zion.225

The Mormons were not the only primitivist religious group to describe Missouri in zionic language. In September 1838, just a month before seventeen Mormon settlers were slaughtered by Missourians at Haun’s Mill, precipitating the Mormon exodus out of the state, 707 Saxon immigrants registered to abandon the German states in order to preserve “Old Lutheranism” in the United States. Following their charismatic , Martin Stephan, the Saxons landed in New

Orleans in January 1839 before proceeding up the Mississippi River valley to southeastern

Missouri’s Perry County. Similar to Joseph Smith, the Saxons stamped a sacred geography upon their newfound home. However, rather than rediscovering lost biblical locales, the Lutherans imprinted the landscape with German references. Names like Fredonia, , Frohna, and, importantly, Wittenberg, dotted Perry County as the Saxons rebuilt their lives on the western frontier. While Adam and Eve may not have walked the hills and forests of Perry County, Martin

Luther, , and other Lutheran Reformation theologians – in spirit – graced the landscape as the constructed their Zion, where “God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine” would abound in purity.

All was not well in Zion, though. In late 1839, sexual scandal rocked the Lutheran enclave, as women accused Martin Stephan of having illicit relationships with them. A church court quickly tried and convicted Stephan of the charges and exiled him to Illinois, where he served the remainder of his days as a pastor near Red Bud, living with his housemaid. In the midst of the crisis, C. F. W. Walther, a young minister serving a congregation in St. Louis, provided the intellectual foundations for the reeling community, which wondered if they

225 For an example of contemporary Mormon apocalyptic interest in Missouri, see Randall C. Bird, Adam-ondi- Ahman and the Last Days (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2011). 80 constituted a “church” without their bishop, through his appeal to the Lutheran Confessions and

Luther’s writings. The 1841 Altenburg Debates over the nature of the church and the ministry cemented Walter’s prominence in the community and set the pattern for his theological guidance, which he offered the community for nearly the next half century. As Walther articulated

Lutheran theology, he portrayed himself as an expositor of as he strictly held to the teachings of the Lutheran Confessions, Martin Luther, and the Lutheran orthodox scholastics who followed in Luther’s wake.

C. F. W. Walther was a primitivist attempting to restore Lutheranism to purity. He perceived European Lutheranism as having been warped in confessional malaise, ignoring

Luther and the scholastic Fathers in favor of rationalism and unionism.226 Martin Stephan’s movement attracted Lutherans, such as Walther, who feared that the state Lutheran churches had lost their way and were looking to restore lost doctrine. Unlike Joseph Smith, Stephan and

Walther did not need Urim and Thummim or golden plates to accomplish this. Rather, they needed the Lutheran Confessions and the texts of the Lutheran Fathers.

Stephan and Walther’s primitivism was of a different flavor than that normally found in

America. Most historians have identified primitivists and restorationists as attempting to recover and reconstruct the New Testament church as described in the Acts of the Apostles. To that end, most studies of primitivism and have focused on Joseph Smith, Alexander

Campbell, Barton Stone, and others who used the New Testament as a springboard for their ecclesiastical endeavors. Furthermore, restorationism tends to be associated with “”

Protestant traditions. While some Episcopalians have been identified by scholars as primitivists,

226 In Lutheran parlance, references to “the Fathers” include Martin Chemnitz, Johann Gerhard, and other sixteenth and seventeenth century Lutheran scholastic theologians as well as those early Christian theologians traditionally recognized as “Church Fathers,” such as Augustine. This chapter follows that usage. 81 they inevitably are evangelical Episcopalians who hearkened to the New Testament to prove the necessity of the three-fold office of the ministry or the primacy of preaching in church services in opposition to the and Anglo-Catholicism.227 In other words, the hallmark of

American Christian primitivism has been an idealization of the New Testament church as the item of reproduction.

While Stephan, Walther, and the theologians who later formed the Missouri Synod valued the New Testament church, of course, they were not interested in reconstructing it.

Instead, they were interested in resurrecting an orthodox Lutheran church. They wished to return to the Lutheran Confessions rather than the Acts of the Apostles. As Lutherans, and as products of the “conservative reformation,” Walther was not concerned with reconstructing the New

Testament church because that had never been a theological concern of Lutheranism. Rather,

Luther, Chemnitz, Stephan (initially), and, later, Walther were more concerned with recovering pure doctrine rather than pure . Ecclesiastical structure was not as central to the

Lutheran Reformation as it was to the Swiss, English, or Radical , all of which influenced American Christianity more deeply than Lutheranism. Therefore, the standard of

Walther’s primitivism was different than that of Joseph Smith or Alexander Campbell. Walther’s primitivism was based upon Lutheran, rather than Reformed, theological presuppositions concerning what took priority in identifying a “true church.” Therefore, his primitivism looks different than those of his restorationist contemporaries, but it remains primitivism nonetheless.

The chapter will demonstrate that primitivism was a driving force in Walther’s construction of Lutheran confessionalism on the Western frontier. Many scholars have credited

Walther with creating a religious enterprise which largely stood impervious to outside influence.

227 David L. Holmes, “Restoration Ideology among Early Episcopal Evangelicals,” in The American Quest for the Primitive Church, ed. Richard T. Hughes (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 153-166. 82 For instance, historian Frederick C. Luebke described Walther’s seminarians as “indoctrinated into a theological synthesis formulated by Luther and crystalized by Walther…untouched by revivalism, rationalism, the Social Gospel, or whatever else characterized the religious environment at a given moment.”228 While theological and cultural isolationism is a valid and central theme within the historiography of the Missouri Synod, scholars ought to take care that we do not reflexively echo the Synod’s self-narrative of preserving unchanging truth. Analyzing

Walther and his work through the lens of Christian primitivism and restorationism allows scholars to better contextualize his (and the nascent Missouri Synod’s) religious conservatism and theological isolationism within the framework of nineteenth century American religious history.

First, this chapter begins with a brief excursus concerning the nature of primitivism or restorationism provides the framework by which Walther is analyzed here. Second, the Saxon immigrant company and the ideology that drove Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, and nearly

700 other immigrants to settle in Perry County is described. Third, Walther’s primitivism will be demonstrated through his reliance upon the Lutheran Confessions and Martin Luther’s writings.

Frequently accused of being a “citation theologian,” Walther’s use of the Confessions and Luther demonstrate his idealization of the sixteenth century Lutheran church rather than the first century

New Testament church as the object of his primitivism. This particularly evidences itself in the

1841 Altenburg Debates, in which he relied upon the Confessions to stabilize his church following Stephan’s fall from grace. Finally, Walther’s restorationist view of the Fathers, whom he believed rearticulated the timeless and eternal truths of God’s Word, is analyzed. Walther’s primitivism is further illuminated in comparison with the Mercersburg theologians, who

228 Frederick C. Luebke, Germans in the New World: Essays in the History of Immigration (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 7. 83 similarly revered the Church Fathers but did so to different ends than Walther. Walther and his fellow Lutherans built a Lutheran Zion in the Midwest through their reliance upon sixteenth century Reformation theology. In restoring “true” doctrine through primitive Lutheranism,

Walther erected the walls that ultimately defined the Missouri Synod and confessional

Lutheranism in North America.

Lutherans and American Primitivism: A Historiographical Excursus

While the central argument of this chapter’s narrative is that Martin Stephan, C. F. W.

Walther, and the early Missouri Synod were primitivist, the claim runs counter to confessional

Lutheran self-understandings as well as the basic narrative of American religious historiography.

While confessional Lutherans frequently engage in restorationist rhetoric, they construe themselves as preservers of ancient, catholic Christianity in contrast to American evangelicals, who are portrayed as rootless historical amnesiacs.229 By appealing to an “ancient” past originating elsewhere than the United States, Lutherans mask their own participation in

American religious movements, since they stand apart from it.230 This narrative not only influences adherents and possible converts but also historians. Since most histories of

Lutheranism are denominational histories that emphasize internal Lutheran developments,

229 For instance, Lutheran theologian Uuras Saarnnivaara titled his study of Luther’s relationship with medieval Catholicism Luther Rediscovers the Gospel: New Light upon Luther’s Way from Medieval Catholicism to Evangelical Faith (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951). The language of “rediscovery” is clearly restorationist and parallels the rhetoric of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Christian Scientists regarding their respective founders. For an example of confessional Lutheran narratives of American evangelicalism, see Klemet I. Preus, The Fire and the Staff: Lutheran Theology in Practice (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), which critiques Lutheran attempts to borrow from evangelical worship practices. 230 Scholarly identification of American Lutheranism as an immigrant religion reinforces in this narrative, since it emphasizes Lutheran’s non-American origins and lack of institutional integration with the rest of American Christianity. It grants Lutheranism the status of “other,” which confessional Lutherans will gladly accept as they market their faith. 84 participation in larger trends in American religious history is largely absent.231 Furthermore,

American religious historians have identified religious primitivism or restorationism following

Reformed theological presuppositions, which hold that the “primitive church” requiring restoration is the New Testament church.232 This chapter challenges that historiography by re- identifying nineteenth century confessional Lutherans in Missouri as primitivists through their envisioning of the sixteenth century Lutheran Confessions as the focal point of their primitivist impulses.

Despite the extensive historiography on restorationist movements in America, few historians have actually focused on the category of “restorationist” or “primitivist.” In 1988,

Richard T. Hughes and C. Leonard Allen penned the primary study of the categories, Illusions of

Innocence, in which they defined primitivism as the “recovery of primal norms.”233 This impulse, which, they argued, ran throughout American religious history, “descends ultimately from a sixteenth-century tradition that viewed antiquity, and especially the primitive Christian church, as the standard for all subsequent Christian faith and practice.”234 American Christian primitivism was Reformed – not Lutheran. Hughes and Allen note that “the uniqueness of this perspective…appears when contrasted with the other dominant tradition of the Reformation, the theology of Martin Luther. Luther had virtually no interest in resurrecting the primitive Christian as a norm for his own age…. Luther was not so much concerned with returning to an earlier time

231 This is not to claim that past histories of American Lutheranism intentionally divorced their subject from its historical context. Rather, historians focused on Lutheran institutions, theological debates, and church mergers. The unfortunate side effect has been to ignore that ways in which American Lutheranism, particularly its conservative variety, fits into preexisting narratives of American religious history. 232 In this dissertation, I follow Richard T. Hughes and C. Leonard Allen’s views that “restorationism,” “primitivism,” and related demonyms are synonymous, since “for the heart of this perspective [restorationism or primitivism] is the concern to ‘restore’ what seems to be ‘primitive’ or prior to the mere traditions of history” (Richard T. Hughes and C. Leonard Allen, Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875 [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988], 4). 233 Ibid., 3. 234 Ibid., 4. 85 as he was with finding a place to stand, a ground of being (ontos), in his own time.”235 Whereas

Luther was interested in “ontological reform,” Reformed Christians were preoccupied with

“primordial reform,” which ascribed purity to ancient traditions compared to modern practices.236

In Hughes and Allen’s narrative, Reformed theology provided the main source for much of American Christianity, religious primitivism in North America is viewed through a Reformed lens. Therefore, primitivism or restorationism is equated with attempts to recreate the New

Testament church in modern times. Thankfully for the historiography, Reformed primitivism abounds in American religious history, and so Hughes and Allen’s definition has been substantiated by ample evidence and provides a coherent narrative of American religion. In their study, Hughes and Allen described the primitivist impulse of much of colonial New England theology, elements of which saw itself as directly replicated first century Christianity.237

Separate, Primitive, and Landmark Baptists all traced their lineage to the apostolic church.238

Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell attempted to eradicate denominationalism by returning to the Bible as the source of everything.239 Joseph Smith and his successors attempted to restore

New Testament doctrines and ecclesiastical structures, all of which they believed had been corrupted through centuries of apostasy in the Christian church.240 Several decades later, Mary

235 Ibid., 4. 236 Ibid., 5. 237 Ibid., 25-78. 238 See Joshua Guthman, Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015); and James A. Patterson, James Robinson Graves: Staking the Boundary of Baptist Identity, Studies in Baptist Life and Thought (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012). 239 See Paul K. Conkin, American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 1-53; Paul K. Conklin, Cane Ridge: America’s (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); and Eva Jean Wrather and D. Duane Cummins, Alexander Campbell: Adventurer in Freedom, A Literary Biography, 3 vols. (Abilene, TX: Christian University Press, 2005-2009). 240 Joseph Smith’s emphasis on restoring lost priesthoods and the “original” church structure exemplifies the nature of Reformed primitivism. Concerning Smith’s understanding of restoration, see Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, xxv-xlvii, 10-79; Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 23-41; Gregory A. Prince, Power From On High: The 86 Baker Eddy, recovering from illness, believed she rediscovered the long obscured, primitive message of the gospel through her spiritual experiences.241 Though this brief list does not exhaust the breadth of the varieties of restorationism studied by historians, it illuminates the nature of Reformed restorationism. All of these movements, despite their theological diversity, are united by their desire to restore apostolic Christianity doctrinally and structurally. Without proper ecclesiastical organization, from this perspective, a church could not claim to be a replica of the early, true Christian church.

By identifying American Christian primitivism with “primordial reform” that includes structural replication of the idealized New Testament church, Lutherans cannot be identified as restorationists or primitivist. As Hughes and Allen note, Martin Luther was not concerned with duplicating the structure of the apostolic church. While he was interested in ecclesiology in the form of the priesthood of all believers, Luther did not believe that a particular church structure was divinely mandated.242 Later Lutheran theologians followed Luther’s ambivalence. In 1530, the foundational document of Lutheranism, the Augsburg Confession, defined the church as “the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”243 Notably absent is any mention of a church governing structure. Rather, the

Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995); and Richard S. Van Wagoner, Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805-1830 (Salt Lake City: The Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2016). 241 In her autobiography, Mary Baker Eddy uses ample restorationist language, declaring that “Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine Scientist.... He who antedated Abraham, and gave the world a new date in the Christian era, was a Christian Scientist….” (Mary Baker Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection [Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1891], 26). Furthermore, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Eddy argues that Jesus taught Christian Science in the first century but that it was obscured later by church councils and theologians (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 143). Eddy viewed herself as restoring original Christianity. 242 This led to conflict with other Reformers, such as Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt. See Timothy F. Lull and Derek R. Nelson, Resilient Reformer: The Life and Thought of Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 177-181; and Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 301-303. 243 Concordia Triglotta, 47. 87 Augsburg Confession focused on orthodoxy. Lutheranism thus does not lend itself to Hughes and

Allen’s interpretation of primitivism.

Defining American religious primitivism with a desire to restore ecclesiastical structures is too restrictive as it masks restorationist impulses in other religious groups that utilize a different standard to mark a “true church.” One such group is the nineteenth century Missouri

Synod. As this chapter demonstrates, Martin Stephan and C. F. W. Walther sought to restore primitive Lutheranism, the source of which was found in the Lutheran Confessions. While the

Bible was revered as scripture, it did not provide a blueprint for church governance. The Bible was the Word of God but not a church constitution. Furthermore, when they referred to “pure doctrine,” they inevitably referenced the Lutheran Confessions, which reflected biblical doctrine and therefore served as a source of truth. The unique role of the confessions in conservative

Lutheranism, discussed in the previous chapter, provided a different reference point for Lutheran primitivism than other incarnations of the same impulse. Theologically, as inheritors of Luther’s

“conservative reformation,” Stephan and Walther’s restoration of true Christianity involved repristinating primitive Lutheranism found in the sixteenth century rather than the first.

Therefore, they read the American religious landscape they encountered through a different lens than their fellow restorationists like Joseph Smith and Alexander Campbell. However, it was primitivism nonetheless. While Stephan and Walther’s project in Missouri radically differed from Mormonism or the Stone-Campbell Movement, the German immigrants participated in a wider religious trend in nineteenth century North America. Despite the Missouri Synod’s self- conception as a bulwark of unchanging truth standing athwart American “enthusiasm,” it shared a similar impulse as their restorationist neighbors on the Western frontier.

88 “Unabridged and Pure”: Martin Stephan’s Lutheran Primitvism

In the twenty-first century, the Missouri Synod has a well-earned reputation as a center for theological traditionalism, wariness of emotion, and a snail’s pace attitude towards change.

Ironically, and unbeknownst to many congregants, the church’s roots are much different.

Straddling the fence between pietism and Lutheran orthodoxy, the Saxon immigrants were guided to the western frontier attempting to preserve Lutheranism under the aegis of an emigration company funded through a common treasury entrusted to pastor-cum-bishop Martin

Stephan, who later was peacefully dispatched following a sexual scandal. Regardless of how much the Missouri Synod would rather celebrate Walther’s legacy as the father of the Missouri

Synod, one cannot have Walther without Stephan. Stephan served as Walther’s pastor, saved him from Pietist-inspired depression, and ultimately set in motion the events and theological methodology that led to the founding of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri,

Ohio, and Other States in Chicago in 1847.244

Martin Stephan’s movement began as a protest against unionism with the Saxon state church. Gathering followers around him in Dresden as he preached conservative Lutheranism in

244 The historiography concerning Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, and the origins of the Missouri Synod requires explanation. For the most part, historians narrating this story are either members of the Missouri Synod or have other personal connections to the saga. No serious biography of C. F. W. Walther has yet been written. August Suelflow, a Missouri Synod pastor, has written the most complete biography, Servant of the Word: The Life and Ministry of C. F. W. Walther (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000), but, as the title implies, it is entirely hagiographic. Missouri Synod historian Walter O. Forster wrote the most complete account of the Saxon emigration to Missouri, Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri, 1839-1841 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), in 1953. While it is magisterial, it takes a dim view of Stephan, who is portrayed as a tyrant. To that end, Forster crafts a narrative that serves as the primary Missouri Synod interpretation of Stephan, which discounts any positive or continuing contribution he made have made to Walther or his synod. According to this narrative, Stephan’s deposition in 1839 provides a clean break between Stephanism and Walther’s rediscovery of Lutheran orthodoxy. The only major biography of Martin Stephan is Philip G. Stephan’s In Pursuit of Religious Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008). The author is a descendent of the bishop and attempts to rehabilitate his image. However, the biography is poorly researched and factually challenged, as Cameron MacKenzie documents in his scathing review (see Cameron A. MacKenzie, review of In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan’s Journey, by Philip G. Stephan, http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/MacKenzie- ReviewStephanPursuitReligiousFreedom.pdf). Therefore, this chapter favors Forster’s narrative over that of Philip Stephan. 89 opposition to the rationalism found in the state parishes, Stephan attracted unwanted opposition from the state, which created a sense of persecution amongst the “Stephanites” and drove their desire to emigrate to America. Stephan’s reclamation of the Lutheran Confessions attracted likeminded and theologically-driven ministers, such as C. F. W. Walther, to his side. Stephan’s movement was driven by two forces: his charisma and his apparent confessionalism. When

Stephan was exiled to Illinois following his sexual scandals, the confessionalism remained and, through the efforts of C. F. W. Walther, became the foundation for the Missouri Synod’s self- identity for the remainder of the nineteenth century. While Stephan’s misbehavior was certainly a social disruption for the Saxon immigrants and precipitated the authority crisis that led to the

Altenburg Debates of 1841, it did not impede the conservative, confessional basis of what became Missouri Synod theology. It only strengthened that impulse as the crises related to

Stephan forced Walther to rely upon the Confessions as a theological bulwark for his community.

Martin Stephan was born on August 13, 1777, in Stramberg, Moravia. Stephan’s family originated in Austria but fled to Moravia as a result of their Hussite convictions.245 Young Martin thus was raised in a bilingual community in which German and Czech were spoken, which became important for his later ministry. Following the Thirty Years’ War, Stramberg became a

Catholic city. While many Hussite families fled to Germany, others, including the Stephans, remained and maintained “ churches.”246 Orphaned at a young age and persecuted as a

Protestant by local Jesuits, Martin and his siblings traveled to Breslau, Silesia, in 1798, where he settled and prepared to labor as a linen weaver.247 There, he encountered Pietists, who recognized

245 Stephan, 15-20. 246 Ibid., 22-23. 247 Ibid., 29; Walter O. Forster, 27. 90 his potential as a future pastor. According to his biographer and descendent Philip G. Stephan,

Martin Stephan “impressed these folks by his ability to debate with opponents in the state church.”248 In order to prepare the young man for the pastorate, the Pietists encouraged him to attend St. Elizabeth’s College, where he matriculated in 1802. As a student, Stephan’s conservativism grew. As he condemned his philosophy courses as “carnal science,” he took refuge at the “House of the Three Carps,” a Pietist gathering place that nurtured his resistance to the theological rationalism and liberalism that he imbibed at the college.249

Stephan’s student days in Silesia corresponded with the “Awakening” (Erweckung), a period of neo-Pietist revival in Northern Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pietism began in the mid-seventeenth century as a reform movement within

Lutheranism which emphasized and experiential religion as an antidote to scholastic, orthodox Lutheranism, which the Pietists worried privileged orthodoxy over orthopraxy.250 In the “Awakening,” Pietism combined with Romanticism to oppose the modern theology promulgated by university theological faculties. Historian Walter H. Conser, Jr., argues that “German romanticism was a break from rationalism and a critique of the Enlightenment” which paralleled the original Pietist critique of Lutheran orthodoxy.251 Both the Enlightenment

248 Stephan, 30. 249 Ibid., 30-31. 250 For surveys concerning Pietism, see Douglas H. Shantz, An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Hans Schneider, German Radical Pietism, trans. Gerald T. MacDonald (Landham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007); and K. James Stein, Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1986). Most histories of Pietism treat as a necessary and positive counteraction to Lutheran orthodoxy, which is often portrayed as “spiritually dead.” For instance, evangelical theologians Roger E. Olson and Christian T. Collins Winn describe the Pietists’ orthodox antagonists as practicing a “formalistic, nominal Christianity” that was “abstract and impersonal” (Roger E. Olson and Christian T. Collins Winn, Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015] 7, 32). Most conservative, confessional Lutheran historians and theologians would challenge such assertions that undergird Pietism’s historiography. For an alternative perspective, see Timothy Schmeling, ed., Lives and Writings of the Great Fathers of the Lutheran Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016). 251 Walter H. Conser, Jr., Church and Confession: Conservative Theologians in Germany, England, and America, 1815-1866 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 28-31. 91 and Orthodoxy constrained human experience with their strict, rationalistic categorization.

Nicholas Hope argues that the “particular issue at the heart of the awakening” was “this growing conflict about the relevance of the parish clergyman and what he taught as a man who remained still very close to the official world as the learned leader of the parish…and the plight of his spiritually distressed flock.”252 Modern theology put seminarians and future pastors in a bind, since “enlightened theology [criticism of the Bible as a source, and exposure of the articles of the faith as man-made documents] put in question the parish clergyman’s vocation to teach his congregation the Bible as truth, and made him question an undeviating loyalty to the local

Reformation church order. How could he remain faithful to a university oath to uphold biblical truth and promote the faith of the land while conducting free inquiry?”253

Pietism provided a remedy to this conundrum. Often operating independently of the state churches, Pietists provided “a broad, nondogmatic basis for religious life, grounded above all in mystical and mundane experience, [which] was at one with the romantic quest for integration with nature, spirit, and the world.”254 A lay ministry developed which led prayer meetings and study sessions in homes, focusing on the sinfulness of humanity and the necessity of personal conversion. Much as the printing press had assisted Luther in his Reformation, printing led to the publication of cheap hymnals, , New Testaments, and postilla, all of which promoted the Awakening.255 The independent, simplistic nature of lay preachers and their collegia pietatis conjured images of the apostolic church, which paralleled renewed academic interest in the early church in European universities.256

252 Nicholas Hope, German and Scandinavian Protestantism, 1700-1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 355. 253 Ibid., 356. 254 Conser, 32. 255 Hope, 364-365 256 Ibid., 362-363. 92 Pietism’s opposition to Enlightenment rationalism did not automatically equate with anti- confessionalism. As with any religious movement, the Awakening was broad-based, and areas of

Germany where Protestantism still held the Confessions in high regard evidenced their confessionalism. Additionally, since Pietists were particularly attentive to an individual’s salvation, the doctrine of justification naturally came into focus. As one Bavarian Pietist noted,

“We were Lutherans even before we knew it.”257 Therefore, neo-Pietism was not inherently anti- confessionalist. Rather, “the Awakening called some to a union of all believing Christians, while it caused others to resist such efforts in the name of loyalty to that very same faith.”258 The

Awakening served as one impulse for a revitalization of Lutheran confessionalism, a movement which deeply influenced Martin Stephan as he progressed in his ecclesiastical career.

Focusing on church history, Stephan studied theology at the University of Halle and the

University of Leipzig, where he completed his studies.259 He was certified for the Lutheran ministry in 1809 and accepted a call to a congregation in Haber, Bohemia.260 However, a year later, Stephan left Haber for Dresden, where he was called to serve St. John’s Lutheran Church.

Though St. John’s was a congregation of the Saxon state church, it held an independent charter based upon its origin as the spiritual home of Bohemian exiles. Therefore St. John’s was able to choose their pastors apart from the state apparatus.261 When Martin Stephan arrived at St. John’s, he inherited a situation in which he could create his own fiefdom.

257 Conser, 37. 258 Ibid., 38. 259 As with much of Stephan’s story, there is controversy surrounding whether or not he completed his theological studies. Missouri Synod historian Walter Forster, whose account of the Saxon immigration is favorable to Walther, claimed that Stephan “discontinued his work at Leipzig in 1809 without taking the examinations” (Forster, 28). Philip Stephan’s biography of his ancestor, though, contradicts Forster and argues that Stephan did complete his studies (Stephan, 31.) 260 Stephan, 38. 261 Forster, 28-29. 93 Whereas Stephan’s confessional Lutheran conservatism may have been detrimental to his career in the Saxon church, he promulgated his views without fear from the pulpit of St. John’s.

Stephan soon involved himself deeply in various Saxon voluntary societies, such as the Saxon

Bible Society and the Dresden Mission Society, both of which he influenced in favor of Lutheran confessionalism rather than latitudinarianism.262 As his profile in Dresden grew, he attracted conservative, confessionalist Lutherans to his fold. Between 1809 and 1820, his parish’s membership “increased six fold and…by 1819 it exceeded a thousand, although there were not more than thirty families properly in the membership of the ‘Bohemian’ congregation.”263 In essence, St. John’s comprised of two congregations: the ethnic Bohemians and conservative

Germans rejecting the liberalism of the other state parishes in Dresden.264 As his parish grew,

Stephan took advantage of St. John’s unique legal rights by organizing conventicles which met outside normal church services. Though conventicles were illegal in Saxony, Stephan believed that his church’s charter allowed him to flout those restrictions.265 Therefore, Stephan found multiple outlets to impart his conservative brand of Lutheranism to his growing circle of followers.

Stephan defined his ministry in confessionalist terms. When attacked by his liberal adversaries for fanaticism and anti-rationalism, he replied by claiming that he preached the pure, unadulterated Lutheranism of the Confessions. He argued that “I am an evangelical Lutheran preacher and preach the Word of God as it is written in the Bible… I possess and preach the apostolic religion, which Luther preached in its purity with such courage.” Further draping himself with the banner of primitive Lutheranism, Stephan declared that he preached “in the

262 Ibid., 30. 263 Ibid., 33. 264 Ibid., 33. 265 Ibid., 32; Mary Todd, Authority Vested, 25. 94 spirit of our pious forefathers.”266 In contrast to modern Germany theology’s explicit rupture with Lutheran Orthodoxy, Stephan hearkened to the Reformation as his foundation. His religion was the “apostolic religion” proclaimed by Luther and “our pious forefathers.” While influenced by the Pietism of his youth, Stephan’s ministry was deeply enmeshed in the conservative confessionalism of nineteenth century Germany, which sought to restore the theological legacy of sixteenth and seventeenth century Lutheranism.

Stephan’s influence grew outside Dresden as Pietist conventicles, particularly those involving university students, became attracted to his charismatic personality and sense of authority. One of these universities was the University of Leipzig, where Carl Ferdinand

Wilhelm (C. F. W.) Walther studied theology. Born on October 25, 1811, into a pastor’s family in Langenchusdorf, Saxony, Walther followed his older brother to the University of Leipzig in order to prepare for the ministry.267 While at Leipzig, Walther became involved in a particularly strict Pietist conventicle. Led by a theological candidate named Kühn (his first name has been lost to history), the conventicle’s trademark became its emphasis upon the necessity of spiritual trials and struggles before one arrived at a saved state. As Missouri Synod historian Walter O.

Forster described Kühn’s position, “The spirit now utterly crushed in a protracted battle with an overstimulated conscience was irrevocably damned.”268 Walther recounted his experiences with

Kühn nearly a half century later during his lectures at Concordia Seminary on Law and Gospel.

Though Walther’s knowledge of the Bible grew, and he previously was sure of his salvation, he was greatly disturbed as Kühn continuously accused the group’s members, “You think you are

266 Ibid., 35. 267 Most of the following biographic information concerning C. F. W. Walther is indebted to August Robert Suelflow, Servant of the Word. Though it is hagiographic in nature, it is the best (and only) modern biography of Walther written thus far. 268 Ibid., 38. 95 all converted Christians, do you? But you are not. You have not yet passed through any real penitential agony.”269 Walther remembered, “He kept repeating his claim until I finally began to ask myself whether I was really a Christian. At first I had felt so happy, believing in my Lord

Jesus Christ. Now a period of severest spiritual affliction began for me…. An increasing darkness settled on my soul as I tasted less and less of the sweetness of the Gospel.”270

As of result of his inner turmoil and the physical asceticism associated with the conventicle’s spiritual discipline, Walther’s health collapsed, necessitating a return to his family home in order to recover. To pass the time, he devoured Luther’s writings, providing the foundation for the theologian’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Reformer’s voluminous works.

Additionally, on a friend’s recommendation, Walther wrote to Stephan, whom he had not met previously, for spiritual advice. Stephan’s reply, counteracting Kühn’s Pietism by assuring

Walther’s of his salvation through the objectivity of the Word and Sacraments, transformed

Walther. Walther reminisced that “his letter was so full of comfort that I could not resist its arguments. That is how I was freed from the miserable state into which I had been led….”271

Walther’s salvation from his spiritual trials was found through a mixture of Luther’s writings and

Stephan’s charismatic pastoral advice, evidencing the mixture of confessional Lutheran and

Pietism found in Stephan’s nascent movement. However, his negative experiences with Kühn’s emotionally driven Pietism deeply affected his theological views, especially as he encountered similar attitudes in North American Protestantism in the decades to come. Walther eventually returned to Leipzig and finished his studies. Following his graduation, Walther served as a tutor and minister in various locales while maintaining strong connections with Stephan and his

269 C. F. Walther, Law and Gospel, 158. 270 Ibid., 158. 271 Ibid., 159. 96 network of followers outside of Dresden.272 By the mid-1830s, through his correspondence with young Pietistically tinged confessional Lutherans in eastern Germany, Stephan had acquired the core of the future Saxon emigration company.

By 1838, Stephan’s position in Dresden became untenable. By then, Stephanism had fully developed as an independent expression of the Awakening that revolved around Stephan’s leadership.273 Stephan’s appeal was found in his charisma and staunch theological conservatism.

According to Forster, his followers “firmly asserted that the means of grace were dependent upon his person and that, if he were silenced, the Lutheran Church would cease to exist in

Saxony.”274 In other words, Stephanism, due its orthodoxy, constituted the church. The

Stephanites’ exclusivism was rooted in their belief that Stephan preached pure Lutheranism rooted in scripture and the Reformation. Naturally, anything else was impure and false religion.

No criticism of Stephan was allowed less Lutheran orthodoxy also be denied. Some followers went so far as to assert that only books by Stephan and Luther be recommended to pastors rather than those approved by the Saxon church.

The Stephanites’ separatist attitude led to increased conflict with the Saxon church, which treated Stephan’s conservatism with disdain and his authority with worry. Extra- ecclesiastical meetings of Stephanites led to charges of cultish behavior, and Stephan’s family problems, resulting from his inattentiveness to his wife and children, did not reflect well upon the pastor either.275 Regardless of charges of immorality, Stephan’s conservative Lutheran theology simply conflicted with the rise of unionism in the Saxon church. Rooted in the rationalism bequeathed to the church by the Enlightenment, unionists advocated in favor of

272 For an overview of Stephan’s network of young clergy in the early 1830s, see Forster, 36-52. 273 Ibid., 62-63. 274 Ibid., 63. 275 Ibid., 68-69. 97 church mergers across confessional lines, arguing that doctrinal distinctives took a secondary priority in comparison to the fellowship shared by all Christians through Christ. The most influential merger took place in Prussia, where King Frederick William III celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Reformation in 1817 by uniting his state’s Lutheran and Reformed communions in the Prussian Union. Such a union would heal the divisions in the churches by enforcing a common liturgical agenda as well as shared celebration of the Lord’s Supper amongst the Reformed and Lutherans regardless of their differing theologies regarding the sacrament. Reformed Protestants and Lutherans were united under the “Evangelical” banner. The

Prussian church refused to employ, let alone ordain, pastors who opposed the union or insisted maintaining confessional distinctives. In 1831, ministers who refused to use the church’s new agenda were threatened with prosecution.276

While the Prussian Union was, legally, a strictly Prussian affair, it created ripple effects in other German states due to Prussia’s political and cultural prominence. Therefore, confessionalists in Saxony looked north towards Prussia and foresaw a future which involved further marginalization, if not outright persecution. Stephanites, already perceiving themselves under siege in Dresden, feared for their security as well as the already faltering orthodoxy of the

Saxon church. Additionally, between 1830 and 1831, the rise of political liberalism in Saxony, constitutional reforms resulting in the creation of the Ministry of Worship and Public Instruction, and the resignation of friendly members in the church apparatus further concerned Stephan and his followers.277 Emigration to America provided a potential solution. In 1833, correspondence with Maryland Lutherans suggested that Missouri might prove a hospitable environment for settlement, since land prices on the western frontier were much cheaper than those in the more

276 Conser, 13-27; Hope, 336-348. 277 Forster, 85. 98 densely settled East. However, Stephan did not further develop plans for emigration until 1836, when Saxon police arrested him for violating the laws prohibiting conventicles.278 Police actions against the Stephanites combined with rampant negative press in the newspapers to drive the

Stephanites into further despair.

In Spring 1836, Stephan began to hold meetings discussing a potential mass emigration to

America. Describing the theme of one of those meeting, one Stephanite wrote in his diary that

“Without a of God the Lutheran Church will scarcely be able to survive in Europe.”279

Quickly, most Stephanites accepted their pastor’s suggestion of emigration to Missouri. Detailed codes were drafted with an eye towards their new settlement. As Walter Forster writes, “The founding of a theological seminary was not too large a project, the question of whether women were to knit on Sunday not too small a matter, to be included in this prospectus for Utopia.”280

Indeed, the codes were decidedly primitivist, as Stephanite G. H. Löber noted that “regarding the authority of the Church relative to the secular arm, the model of the first four centuries shall be adhered to; that of the German church is to receive little or no consideration.”281 Authority rested in a revived episcopacy (with the role of bishop granted to Stephan) and the Bible as interpreted through the Book of Concord.282 However, the final decision in favor of emigration was not made until Stephan was suspended from the Saxon ministry in 1837.283 At that point, from the

Stephanites’ perspective, emigration became a necessity. By suspending Stephan, the Saxon church had divorced itself from pure, orthodox Lutheranism. Walther and others argued that the organization of a “free church” was impossible due to Saxony’s political and theological

278 Ibid., 90. 279 Ibid., 96. 280 Ibid., 98. 281 Quoted. in ibid., 98. 282 Ibid., 98. 283 Ibid., 101-104. 99 situation.284 Therefore, Stephanites needed to abandon Saxony in order to preserve their faith, and in December 1837, they founded an emigration company (Gesellschaft). The company prepared a common fund to finance the emigration and adopted codes for government both during and after the emigration, which were officially accepted in May 1838.

Stephan’s codes provided a blueprint for a confessional Lutheran intentional community in Missouri. While the venture was unparalleled in Lutheran history, and Stephan’s unique mixture of Pietism and confessionalism was a decidedly nineteenth century innovation, his codes exuded conservative primitivism. Stephan and his followers pledged allegiance to “the tenets of the Lutheran faith, as contained in God’s Word of the Old and New Testaments, and set forth and confessed in the Symbolic Writings of the Lutheran Church,” which they accepted “in their entirety and without any addition.”285 In doing so, they were doing nothing else than preserving and confessing pure, primitive Lutheranism, since they accepted “these writings according to the simple sense of their wording, as they have, since their origin, been unanimously and uniformly understood and applied – during the 16th, 17th, and the first part of the 18th century by the entire

Lutheran church, and from that time on by all who have not departed from the old, pure Lutheran faith.”286 Further detailing the rationale for their emigration, the code claimed that it was impossible to keep their faith “pure and unadulterated” in Saxony. Therefore, they sought to settle in a country where they could “serve God undisturbed, in the manner which He has graciously revealed and established, and enjoy undisturbed the unabridged and pure means of grace…, and preserve them thus unabridged and pure for themselves and their descendants.”287

The Stephanites believed that this was possible in the United States due to its constitutional

284 Ibid., 106-112. 285 Ibid., 566. 286 Ibid., 566. 287 Ibid., 577. 100 protections regarding religious freedom. The codes continued to delineate various roles, offices, and regulations regarding the Gesellschaft and its eventual settlement in the American West and gave considerable power to Stephan, whom the codes referred to as “the primate.”

While Forster and other historians focus on the substantial authority given by the codes to

Stephan in order to highlight the pastor’s authoritarianism and the seemingly cult-like nature of

Stephanism, the confessionalist nature of the Stephanite codes bears emphasis. Regardless of

Stephan’s penchant for power and personal peccadillos, Stephan’s theology was conservative.

Though Stephanism grew out of Pietism and the conventicle system, its distaste for rationalism not only led its adherents to emphasize personal conversion but also the Lutheran Confessions as the standard of orthodoxy. Stephan was equally opposed for the method of his ministry as well as its theological substance. Indeed, alongside his charisma, Stephan’s appeal resided in his confessional Lutheranism. The two worked in tandem, as Walther’s conversion from Pietism to

Stephanism demonstrated. Stephan sought to restore the pure, primitive Lutheranism found in the

Confessions. Viewing the “modern theology” of the eighteenth century German church as vapid and spiritually dangerous, Stephan’s study of the Bible, the Confessions, and church history inspired him to “restore” the Lutheranism of the sixteenth century. When the codes referred to the “old, pure Lutheran faith” as well as the “unabridged and pure means of grace,” Stephan and his followers gave witness to their primitivist desires and provided language that would be continued by their spiritual descendants in the Missouri Synod and other confessional Lutheran churches in North America.

101 Stephan’s Fall and Walther’s Rise: Confessionalism on the Mississippi

The historiography of Martin Stephan and the Saxon emigration is problematic because of its teleological nature. Since Stephan is important in connection with the development of the

Missouri Synod, his role in history is predetermined. Stephan is portrayed as a shady cult leader whose followers finally awaken to the fact that their pastor is morally challenged once he is caught in adultery (having abandoned his wife and many children back in Germany). The Saxons are rescued from falling into the abyss of despair only by the theological cunning of Walther, who, through the Altenburg Theses in 1841, convinces them that they indeed constitute a church regardless of Stephan’s nefariousness. In other words, within the traditional narrative of Stephan and Walther framed with an eye towards the organization of the Missouri Synod, Walther’s nimbleness at Altenburg represents a break with the Saxons’ Stephanite past. If Stephan represents the errors of one’s youthfulness, Walther guides the Saxons into maturity and pristine orthodoxy. While the perceived fissure between the eras of Stephan and Walther is useful for a synod to which Stephan is an embarrassment, it obscures the continuity that existed in Walther’s confessionalism and Lutheran primitivism, two characteristics that Walther inherited from

Stephan. Indeed, Walther’s Lutheran primitivism evidences itself through his response to the crisis resulting from Stephan’s exile to Illinois. In the Altenburg Theses, Walther relies upon the

Lutheran Confessions and Martin Luther’s writings as the crux of his argument. Through the theses, Walther continued Stephan’s project of preserving the “pure, old Lutheran faith” in

America.

In December 1838, the Stephanites departed Germany for America. Of the five ships traveling to the United States, four arrived in New Orleans in January 1839. From there, the

Saxons, who spoke little if any English, arranged for steamboat passage north on the Mississippi

102 River to Missouri. Before the Saxons began their trek north, the Stephanite pastors officially accepted Martin Stephan as their bishop.288 This move had roots in the codes accepted by the

Gesellschaft, which dictated that “the chief management of all affairs of the entire Gesellschaft shall be exercised by its primate, who accordingly will combine in his person the supreme authority in spiritual and civil matters.”289 Additionally, “the primate shall at all times be treated by members of the Gesellschaft with the reverence due his high office and great wisdom; he shall receive the title ‘Very Reverend Sir’; offenses against his person and disobedience against his orders shall be punished with severe civil and ecclesiastical penalties.”290 The codes gave

Stephan an extraordinary amount of power that superseded the normal authority and deference given to a Lutheran pastor or superintendent.

While the codes were primarily civil in nature, they echoed the high ecclesiology found in “Principles of an Ecclesiastical Constitution as It is Prescribed in the Word of God and the

Symbolical Writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and as It Actually Existed in the

Apostolic Church in the First Centuries.” According to the “Principles,” the office of the ministry, “unlike any other office, is immediately instituted by God, transmitted by our Lord

Jesus Christ to the apostles and by these continued in the manner commanded by the Word of

God, i.e., through , until our time.”291 Stephan’s authority, as an extension of the

Lutheran ministry, rested upon . Furthermore, Stephan argued that the ministry provided the only means for dispensing the means of grace: “Only through the office the grace of God is offered, through the means of grace of preaching, of the Sacraments, and of

288 Ibid., 217. 289 Ibid., 572. 290 Ibid., 573. 291 J. F. Köstering, Auswanderung der sächsischen Lutheraner im Jahre 1838, ihre Niederlassung in Perry-Co., Mo., und damit zusammenhängende interessante Nachrichten (St. Louis: Wiebusch und Sohn, 1866), 37. 103 the cure of souls, through admonitions and threats, and the keys for binding and loosing.”292 The

Church, according to Stephan and his pastors, depended upon the ministry. Without the office, or, more explicitly within this context, without Stephan, the Church would not exist.

Stephan’s ordination as bishop was the natural conclusion of the ecclesiology developed by the Stephanites. Stephan believed that he was God’s vessel through which he would restore the true Church, and the episcopacy was yet another manifestation of the restorationist impulse shared by him and his followers. When the Stephanite ministers accepted Stephan as their bishop, they acknowledged that he had already served in that capacity. The investiture simply made it official. Furthermore, the episcopacy was “in accord with the Word of God, with the old

Apostolic Church, and with our Symbolic Writings.”293 Therefore, Stephan was owed full obedience in accordance with his office. On February 16, 1839, while Stephan and his pastors were traveling on a steamboat towards St. Louis, the ministers signed a “Pledge of Subjection,” which pledged total fealty to Bishop Stephan. The pledge connected loyalty to Stephan with subscription to the “pure” Christianity confessed in the Book of Concord:

We affirm with sincere heart that we are determined to adhere steadfastly and firmly to God’s Word and the pure old-Lutheran confession of faith. We further declare that we are determined to hold fast with heart and soul, to keep most faithfully, and to live, suffer, and die under the episcopal method of church polity, with the introduction of which among us a beginning has already been made and which, when established according to the Word of God, has been used by the Apostolic Church, has been recognized by the true Church at all times, has been retained by the Lutheran Church of until this very day, and is in accord with the Symbolic Writings of the Lutheran Church.294

The Stephanites’ primitivism reverberates throughout this clause of the subjection pledge. They claim simply to keep apostolic Christianity as restored by Luther and articulated through the

Book of Concord. Since the Book of Concord is largely silent on matters of church government,

292 Ibid., 37. 293 Forster, 289. 294 Ibid., 294. 104 and the episcopacy existed in some incarnations of Lutheranism (particularly in Scandinavia), the Stephanites could mask their innovation to conservative, German confessional Lutheranism through appeals to the ancient Christian church. Wrapping themselves in the apostolic episcopacy and the Lutheran Confessions, Stephan’s ministers threatened anyone who challenged Stephan or grumbled about him with from the church and expulsion from the Gesellschaft, which necessitated repayment of money received from the society to fund the individual’s emigration.295

As the Saxons settled in St. Louis and further south in Perry County, Stephan’s authoritarianism became more and more troubling, and it did not take long for the Lutheran Zion to unravel. As one might expect, the emigration company, operating out of a common fund and with little knowledge of American ways, floundered and experienced financial difficulties. In the midst of the economic stress, an unexpected pastoral crisis rocked the Stephanites.296 On May 5,

1839, G. H. Löber, one of the Stephanite pastors, preached a Rogate Sunday sermon calling his parishioners to repentance. Apparently the sermon worked. After Divine Service, two women approached Löber independently of one another and confessed to having had affairs with

Stephan. In short order, several other women made similar confessions or claimed that Stephan had made unwanted advances on them.297 Word of the accusations quickly spread to C. F. W.

Walther and other pastors in the region, and rumors traveled amongst the Saxon laity. A council of pastors and Gesellschaft officers decided that Stephan was guilty of the charges and needed to be expelled from the community.

295 Ibid., 295-296. 296 For overviews of Stephan’s scandal, see Forster, 390-442; Stephan, 179-202; and Todd, 45-50. 297 Ibid., 392-393. 105 On May 29 and 30, 1839, a council was convened in Perry County to address the charges against Stephan. The bishop, though, refused to appear since he did not recognize the council’s authority. Stephan was promptly removed as bishop, excommunicated from the church, ordered to vacate his episcopal residence, and leave Perry County.298 Continuing to deny his subservience to the council, Stephan refused. In response, a mob invaded Stephan’s house, ransacked his possessions, and discovered ample sums of money and “curiosities of all kinds,” which further infuriated the Saxons.299 Finding himself in an impossible situation, Stephan agreed to renounce his claims upon the Gesellschaft (accepting $100 in compensation) and leave

Perry County. Offered a choice between returning to Germany or settling in Illinois, Stephan chose Illinois. On June 1, 1839, two Saxons rowed Stephan across the Mississippi River to his exile in the flat prairies. Sixteen days later, Louise Günther, one of his mistresses, followed him across the Mississippi and served as his housemaid for the remainder of his life.300 Stephan eventually settled near Red Bud, Illinois, where he established and pastored a congregation until his death on February 22, 1836. The congregation, now Trinity Lutheran Church, is now a congregation of the Missouri Synod.

While deposing a religious leader is crippling to nearly any organization, it was especially so to the Saxon immigrants. Theologically, Stephan was the heart of their church.

Based on their ecclesiology, God provided his means of grace solely through the office of the ministry, which had now been called into doubt due to Stephan’s behavior and the pastors’ subservience to him. Stephan’s charisma and orthodoxy had been the focal points of the

Stephanite movement, the reason for their abandonment of the Saxon church and Saxony itself,

298 Ibid., 417-418. 299 Ibid., 420. 300 Ibid., 427. 106 their emigration to Missouri, and their self-conception of themselves as constituting the true church. As Mary Todd writes in her study of authority issues in the Missouri Synod, “[The

Saxons] had organized themselves as a church, traveled together as a church, pledged themselves as congregants to their pastor. Now, without the bishop, were they still a church?”301

The answer was not simple. A leadership vacuum existed. Stephan had no heir apparent, and his lieutenants were all young pastors who had devoted themselves fully to him. The Gesellschaft began to break apart. While some immigrants wished to divest the ministry of the secular powers given to them through the codes, the pastors tried to hold onto those powers.302 As a result of the conflict, the lay members of the settlement’s administrative board resigned en masse.303 While the Saxons debated the survival of their frontier settlement, they also debated the nature of the clergy. Carl Vehse, a lay leader, wrote a Protestationschrift that argued that “the office of the ministry is no more than a public service, when something is enjoined upon a person by the whole congregation.”304 In other words, Vehse favored congregationalism as a correction to the hierarchical nature of Stephanism. The ministers responded by decrying and apologizing for

Stephanism’s excesses while also calling for Vehse to repent for challenging the ministerium.305

As Mary Todd notes, “The clergy never changed their fundamental notion of the ministerial office, but merely adjusted their stance on church government. They continued to cast blame on

Stephan and claimed ignorance of his intentions, but they never renounced the episcopal system under which the emigration has been organized.”306

301 Todd, 51. 302 Ibid., 52. 303 Forster, 437-441; Todd, 53-54. 304 Forster, 463. 305 Ibid., 463-464. 306 Todd, 55. 107 Vehse was not so easily cowed. Instead, he continued to develop his case for Lutheran congregationalism. He argued that Christ was present where “two or three are gathered in my name” (Matthew 18:20), and thus congregations took precedence over Stephan’s episcopacy, a synodical system, or any other ecclesiastical structure. Since the congregation was the fundamental unit of the church, power derived from it rather than a “correctly” ordained minister. Since the congregation was a religious body, likewise the ministers it ordained were called to serve in religious positions rather than meddling in secular affairs.307 Thus, Vehse decried the marriage of the religious and secular power in the ministerium enshrined in the

Stephanite Gesellschaft codes. Finally, Vehse argued that the emigration was unnecessary, since the existence of the Church was not threatened by state persecution of Stephan. Though his arguments resonated with sections of the immigrant community, they were not widely adopted, and Vehse soon returned to Germany in December 1839.308 However, his questions lingered in the minds of the Saxons and came to fruition in 1840 and 1841 as the settlement became more financially stable.

In early 1840, G. H. Löber, E. G. Keyl, and Ernst Bürger, three of the Saxon pastors apologized for their early condemnation of Vehse’s views. In April 1840, theological candidates at the Log Cabin College in Perry County, which served as the community’s theological college, refused to preach or take calls based upon doubts of whether or not they constituted a true church.309 Löber went so far as to question whether the Saxon emigration was approved by

God.310 Even C. F. W. Walther questioned the settlement’s status before God. He was sickened

307 Forster, 468. 308 Daniel P. Leyrer, “Walther at Altenburg: The Historical Influences Which Lay Behind the Theses,” 7, WLS Essays, http://www.wlsessays.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/3058/LeyrerWaltherAltenburg.pdf. 309 Ibid., 512. 310 Ibid., 513. 108 by his “unfaithfulness toward the first congregations which we left contrary to God, His will, and

His word, and our oaths to which [congregations] we broke.” Walther was ashamed by “the shameful idolatry of Stephan, the sectarian exclusiveness, the condemnation of other upright people, the departure from many essentials of the Lutheran Church….” He felt “like a kidnapper, a robber of the wealthy among us, a murderer of those who lie buried in the sea and the many who were stricken down here, a member of a mob, a mercenary, an idolater, etc.”311

Other former Stephanites shared Walther’s guilt. Concerning whether the Saxon emigration company constituted a “mob” or a church, attorney Franz Adolph Marbach (and

Vehse’s brother-in-law) labeled it the former.312 In between the Stephan debacle and the hardships faced by the immigrants, it was clear to Marbach that God had not endorsed the endeavor.313 Marbach formalized his position in a declaration that he issued on March 3, 1841, arguing that the Saxon religious organization in Missouri rested upon sinful foundations and therefore was irredeemably corrupt. Therefore, God could not work through it. Pointedly,

Marbach claimed that the former Stephanites were not a church due to their prior sinfulness.

Therefore, the Saxons must publically repent of their sins related to the emigration to Missouri and then rectify the situation by returning to Germany.314 Marbach’s declaration formed the basis for the Altenburg Debates on April 15 and 20, 1841.

Prior to the publication of Marbach’s manifesto, C. F. W. Walther had already been wrestling with the doctrine of the church. The winter of 1840-1841 was a devastating season for

Walther. His brother, Otto Hermann Walther, a pastor of Trinity Church in St. Louis, passed

311 C. F. W. Walther to O. H. Walther, May 4, 1840, quoted in Forster, 515. 312 P. E. Kretzman, “The Altenburg Debates,” Concordia Theological Monthly XII, no. 3 (March 1941), 166-167; John C. Wohlrabe, Jr., “The Americanization of Walther’s Doctrine of the Church,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 52, no. 1 (January 1988), 5. 313 Leyrer, 13. 314 Ibid., 13. 109 away unexpectedly on January 21, 1841. When Trinity Church called C. F. W. Walther to serve as their new pastor, he “tentatively declined” the call, since he was unsure of the status of the

“church” in Missouri. Walther’s vexations corresponded with a period of sustained illness that largely confined him to a colleague’s house for recuperation. Fortunately for Walther, that house was home to a substantial library filled with the works of Martin Luther and the sixteenth and seventeenth century Lutheran scholastics.

Walther dived into those sources, mining them for any possible information on the true nature of the church. It bears mentioning that all sources discussing Walther’s research during his illness emphasize his study of the Confessions, Luther’s works, and the scholastics’ writings rather than a strict study of the Bible.315 This does not suggest that the Bible was unimportant to

Walther’s formulation of his ecclesiology or that he did not study the Bible. Rather, it provides insights into Walther’s theological method in 1841, immediately following his involvement with

Stephanism yet still before his theology reached maturity in the decades to come. When Walther investigated the doctrine of the church, he sought answers from sixteenth and seventeenth century Germany rather than first century Palestine. His primitivism was different than that of contemporary Reformed restorationists Joseph Smith or Alexander Campbell. Whereas both

Smith and Campbell sought to rediscover the ancient ecclesiastical structure and theology of the

New Testament church, Walther was more concerned with the “pure” doctrine “rediscovered” by

Luther. The foundation of Walther’s primitivism differed from that of his contemporaries.

The evidence for Walther’s research is found throughout his early writings on the office of the ministry. Walther’s manuscripts of the Altenburg Theses, which he presented at the 1841 debate, contain only two citations of Luther’s writings. However, that hardly scratches the

315 Indeed, several confessional Lutheran theologians view Walther’s illness as providential for the time it gave him to study those writings. See Kretzmann, 168, and Leyrer, 14. 110 surface of the work he did during his illness. Evidence of his study is found in his The Church and The Office of The Ministry, which Walther first published in 1852. While published within the context of another ecclesiological controversy, the book relied upon his prior research on questions regarding the church and ministry from a decade earlier. The book’s subtitle, “A

Collection of Testimonies regarding the Question from the Confessions of the Evangelical

Lutheran Church and from the Private Writings of Orthodox Teachers of the Same,” describes the book’s nature precisely.316 Walther’s methodology provided ample fodder for later critics who accused him of being little more than a “citation theologian.” The book consists almost entirely of quotations from the Bible, the Lutheran Confessions, the early Church Fathers, and the Lutheran Fathers, which were divided under the categories of “Proof from God’s Word,”

“Witnesses of the Church in Its Public Confessions,” and “Witnesses of the Church in the Private

Writings of Its Teachers.” In his 1852 study, Walther offered sixteen theses, which were expanded versions of his 1841 Altenburg Theses. He provided very little commentary. Instead, he let scripture and the Fathers argue for him through hundreds of pages of quotations supporting his case. The book’s organization flowed such as that the Bible was given pride of place as

God’s Word, but it was clear that it was supported by the sixteenth century Lutheran

Confessions, which in turn were supported by the church’s theologians in all eras. He cited the

Fathers in the same manner that other primitivists or restorationists cited biblical chapter and verse to support their particular theological innovations. By constructing the book in this manner, it seemed as though Walther was completely unoriginal. Rather, he was parroting orthodoxy as

316 C. F. W. Walther, The Church and The Office of the Ministry: The Voice of Our Church on the Question of Church and Office, A Collection of Testimonies regarding This Question from the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and from the Private Writings of Orthodox Teachers of the Same. From the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States as a Witness of Its Faith, Set Forth as a Defense against the Accusations of Herr Pastor Grabau in Buffalo, New York, trans. J. T. Mueller (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2012). 111 he reconstructed primitive Lutheranism on the western frontier in the wake of the Stephanite crisis.

Walther’s intense research reaped rich rewards. At the Altenburg Debates, Walther offered eight theses to the audience. He began with the claim that “the true Church, in the most real and perfect sense, is the totality of all true believers…who have been called and sanctified through the Word.”317 This paralleled the eighth article of the Augsburg Confession, which declared that “the Church properly is the congregation of saints and true believers….”318

Therefore, the Church’s presence amongst the Saxons did not depend upon the validity of

Stephan’s ministry or the Saxons’ righteousness in following him. Rather, the Church is comprised of believers who are “called and sanctified through the Word.” Walther followed upon that point with his second thesis: “The name of the true Church belongs also to all those visible gatherings of men among whom God’s Word is purely taught and the holy Sacraments are administered according to the institution of Christ.”319 Again, Walther relied upon the

Augsburg Confession, though this time the seventh article: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”320

Through his application of the Confessions, Walther was moving the focus from “correct” orders of ministry to pure Word and Sacraments. As long as the Saxons possessed the means of grace, which came through the Word (not the ministry, as per Stephan’s “Principles”), they constituted a church. Their identity as a true church was not based upon personalities or offices but on their confession of pure Christianity.321 Walther argued that “the orthodox church is chiefly to be

317 Ibid., 361. 318 Concordia Triglotta, 47. 319 Walther, The Church and the Office of The Ministry, 361. 320 Concordia Triglotta, 47. 321 Indeed, the silence of the Augsburg Confession concerning proper ecclesiastical structure allowed Walther to dispatch with the episcopacy, which symbolized the excesses of Stephanism. 112 judged by the common, orthodox, public confession to which its members acknowledge and confess themselves to be pledged.”322

Walther’s theses won the day. According to Walter Forster, “If there was any single factor which saved the colonies from complete dissolution and from the corrosive forces of further internal division, it was the Altenburg Debate.”323 Even Marbach was largely convinced, though he eventually returned to Saxony.324 The Altenburg Debate was a crowning achievement in Walther’s career. As Forster, Todd, and others have acknowledged, Walther’s victory allowed the Saxons to move past Stephan and towards the organization of the German Evangelical

Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States in 1847.325 The debate also established the

Lutheran Confessions’ role in that community. According to Missouri Synod historian and pastor

Martin Noland, the debate’s “primary significance was the establishment of the Lutheran

Confessions as the chief theological authority among the Saxon emigrants, in the sense in which that was understood by the authors of the Book of Concord.”326

Walther’s reliance upon the Confessions in his Altenburg Theses inscribed his method of

“citation theology” into the synod he would build. However, more than that, it also implemented

Walther’s Lutheran primitivism, which he inherited from Stephan. Walther’s theses successfully divorced the Saxons from Stephan. However, Walther did not attempt to remove the elements of

322 Walther, The Church and the Office of The Ministry, 362. Later, in his 1885 seminary lectures on the topic of Law and Gospel, Walther would emphasize this view to his students: “When you make a person’s salvation dependent upon membership in the visible orthodox Church and communion with the visible orthodox Church, that means you are overthrowing the doctrine of justification.” Lest one think that he identified confessional Lutheran church bodies as the “,” Walther noted that “The true Church extends around the globe and is found in all sects…. Anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and who is a member of his spiritual body is a member of the Church” (Walther, Law and Gospel, 378-379). 323 Forster, 525. 324 Ibid., 526-528. 325 Ibid., 526; Todd, 60. 326 Martin Noland, “Walther and the Revival of Confessional Lutheranism,” Concordia Theological Monthly 75, nos. 3-4 (July/October 2011): 211. 113 Stephan’s theology that, alongside the pastor’s charismatic authority, attracted adherents who were disaffected with the Saxon church’s rationalism. Instead, Walther preserved Stephanism’s confessionalism, and he admitted it. In an 1840 letter to his brother and fellow Stephanite pastor,

Walther exuberantly noted “how faithful God showed himself toward me during the entire time of my association with Stephan! … He did not allow a childlike trust in our precious Lutheran

Fathers and an unconditioned adherence to the Lutheran Church and its doctrines to be extinguished in me.”327 Stephanism began as a movement seeking to restore lost truths found in the Book of Concord. Walther described Stephanism’s initial appeal in its offer of “the same simple conservative Lutheran confession; by appealing, and that by name, to every to all recognized faithful teachers of our Church from Luther down to the most recent times.”328 That description could just as easily describe Walther’s theological methodology in Missouri. Both

Stephan and Walther offered their followers a primitive Lutheranism rooted in sixteenth century theology and found success in doing so. In that sense, Walther’s “citation theology” represents a continuation of Stephanite primitivist impulses, which he would apply with gusto as he guided his Lutheran Zion for nearly the next half century.

“God’s Word and Luther’s Doctrine”: Walther’s Repristination Theology

In April 1847, the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other

States was organized in Chicago, combining Walther’s Saxon Missourians with other conservative Lutherans from Michigan and Ohio who were inspired by the German confessional

Lutheran theologian Wilhelm Löhe.329 Walther was elected as the synod’s first president.

327 Carl S. Meyer, Letters of C. F. W. Walther, 33. 328 Noland, 207. 329 Mark E. Granquist, Lutherans in America: A New History, 149-151; E. Clifford Nelson, The Lutherans in North America, 179-181. 114 Amongst other actions, the new synod declared its motto to be “God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine pure shall to eternity endure” (Gottes Wort und Luthers Lehr vergehet nun und nimmermehr).330 Alongside the side benefit of rhyming, this motto encapsulated how Walther portrayed his synod. Indeed, the motto appeared on many denominational publications, including the German language periodical Der Lutheraner, the cover of which, throughout much of the nineteenth century, greeted its readers with an image of an angel blowing a trumpet. On either side of the angel read the text of Revelation 14:5-6: “Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’” Historically, this text has been popular with many restorationist movements in America. Joseph Smith believed that the passage referred to the coming of the

Book of Mormon and the Restoration. Later in the nineteenth century, some of Mary Baker

Eddy’s followers believed that the verses clearly described the coming of Christian Science.331

For the Missouri Synod, the verses’ prophetic reference was just as plain. Of course, the Apostle

John foresaw Martin Luther’s rediscovery of the pure, unadulterated gospel.

Walther frequently used the phrase “pure and unadulterated” or sundry variations thereof to describe Missouri Lutheranism. His Lutheranism was that of the apostles, the Church Fathers,

Luther, the Confessions, and the Lutheran Fathers (or scholastics). He refused to acknowledge any difference between his own theology and that of his predecessors or brook any disagreement with them. Walther’s unwavering certainty was rooted in his subscription to the Lutheran

330 C. F. W. Walther, Church Fellowship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015), 76. 331 , The Destiny of the Mother Church, Twentieth-Century Biographers Series (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1991). 115 Confessions as a correct summary and exposition of biblical doctrine. Those who disagreed with the Confessions, whether Methodists or other Lutherans, were deemed heterodox or worse. In an

1858 district address Walther labeled Lutherans who disagreed with the Confessions as “bastards who, because they do not believe the holy divine Scriptures, besmirch the Church as a temptress who confesses what she has found in the Scriptures as her heart’s faith.”332 As Walther built the

Missouri Synod, he followed in Stephan’s footsteps (minus the scandals) by continuing

Stephan’s primitivist project. Walther’s modus operandi did not change much between the 1841

Altenburg Debates and his passing in 1887. Walther’s idealized “pure” Lutheranism was found in the Confessions and the writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Lutheran Fathers, who, alongside the Bible, provided Walther with much of the source material for his voluminous writings. These writings steered Walther as he guided his synod’s theology, constructed its identity, and identified its enemies in his quest to restore primitive Lutheranism in North

America.

To Walther, Martin Luther was not simply an orthodox theologian with a knack for interpreting the Word. Rather, “he was…the reformer of the Church and the revealer and destroyer of the Antichrist, chosen by God himself.”333 Luther was unique in salvation history as

God’s chosen instrument to restore true doctrine and defeat the Antichrist (i.e., the papacy) in the last times.334 He was an eschatological figure. Moreover, “Luther is the only theologian who is prophesied in the Holy Scriptures. He is without any doubt the angel of whom Revelation 14:6 spoke.”335 Lest anyone doubt the degree of authority Walther gave Luther, he declared that “after

332 Walther, Church Fellowship, 22. 333 C. F. W. Walther, “The Fruitful Reading of the Writings of Luther,” in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 333. 334 Concerning Walther’s view and theological use of Luther, see Robert Kolb, “C. F. W. Walther, Interpreter of Luther on the American Frontier,” The Lutheran Quarterly 5, no. 1 (1987): 469-485. 335 Walther, “The Fruitful Reading of the Writings of Luther,” 333. 116 the apostles and prophets, Luther has no one in the Church to compare with him. Is there even a single doctrine that Luther did not explicate most clearly and gloriously?”336 His restoration of the gospel and reformation of the Church “could not have happened without a completely unique enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.”337 Due to the quasi-inspired status of Luther’s writings,

Walther recommended that “A man ought to make it a rule for himself to read something in

Luther’s writings every day…. One should make himself so familiar with his edition of Luther that he can find every document without time-consuming reference works.”338 Though Walther hedged his position by noting that “he is no oracle,” Luther’s position in Walther’s theological hierarchy is far above that of primus inter pares.339 He was a biblically prophesied, foreordained restorer. Walther does not describe him as a prophet, but one wonders if Luther’s post-biblical existence is the only thing denying him the mantle.

Despite his belief in Luther’s eschatological identity, Walther did not grant Luther or any of the Church Fathers theological carte blanche as divinely inspired or on par with scripture.

Ironically, given the charges of “citation theology” that were frequently leveled against him,

Walther condemned Lutherans operating with a “‘parrot’ mindset,” deeming such an attitude as

“papistic, dangerous, and harmful to the faith.”340 “For if one substitutes the teaching of the

Fathers [for that of scripture],” Walther argued, “it is built on sand and will collapse in the first

336 Ibid., 334. 337 Ibid., 334. 338 Ibid., 343. 339 Ibid., 342. 340 Walther, Church Fellowship, 380. These comments were made in an essay given to the 1884 synodical convention in the midst of the Predestinarian Controversy, which raged between various Midwestern synods in the late nineteenth century concerning the nature of election. Walther’s opponents partially based their arguments on a passage of Johann Gerhard’s seventeenth century dogmatic texts. Walther argued that his opponents misconstrued Gerhard’s position and, regardless, violated scriptural doctrine. Therefore, these comments were made in the context of debates within Midwestern Lutheranism concerning the authority of the Fathers in theological controversies. Concerning the Predestinarian Controversy and Walther’s role in it, see John M. Brenner, “The Election Controversy Among Lutherans in the Twentieth Century: An Examination of the Underlying Problems,” PhD diss., Marquette University, 2012; Granquist, 189-191; John A. Moldstad, Jr., Predestination: Chosen in Christ (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1997), 83-94; and C. F. W. Walther, All Glory to God, 161-365. 117 trial that comes along. The first windstorm of false doctrine will leave it in ruins.”341 Such faith

“is not true faith, but only an imitated faith.”342 Instead, one must place one’s faith in scripture as the sedes doctinae. Articulating his argument in a typically eschatological framework, Walther asked if his audience was willing to face God on Judgment Day using the Fathers as their faiths’ foundation in times of controversy: “Is this what you say, ‘There was a great controversy, so I joined those who teach like a Hunnius, Polycarp Leyser, Gerhard, Quenstedt, and other pious men, and I think it will probably be right’? If this is the case, then you are lost at the last hour.

Then the devil will say, ‘So are these your gods? Look, then you are lost now; you come with me.’”343 In order to not let one’s reliance upon Quenstedt lead one to hell, a person needs to recognize that “Scripture is the alpha and omega of all saving truth.”344 The Word judges the words of the Fathers and settles controversies.345 Like the Bereans, Lutherans must test everything by scripture.346 Walther believed that “Two things should be found in every genuine

Lutheran. First, in regards to God’s Word he practices absolutely no criticism…. The second mark of a true Lutheran is that he always subjects human writing to critical appraisal.”347 More succinctly, Walther noted that “He who subjects God’s Word to critical appraisal is a rationalist and a heathen; but he who does not subject human writings to critical appraisal is a papist.”348 To that end, the Church and Lutheran Fathers possessed a secondary status of theological authority in comparison to scripture. Walther believed himself – and his synod – to be a slave to the Word, not the Fathers.

341 Walther, Church Fellowship, 382. 342 Ibid., 382. 343 Ibid., 386. This claim, predictably (and unintentionally, ironically, given the context), was immediately followed by a Luther quote comparing those with such faith to “fanatics” (Ibid., 386). 344 Ibid., 389. 345 Ibid., 377. 346 Ibid., 395. 347 Ibid., 396-397. 348 Ibid., 397. 118 Walther’s position belied the fact of his reliance upon Luther, the Confessions, and the

Fathers in general for his theology. While Walther advised his fellow Lutherans to follow scripture rather than the Fathers, he also found little cause for argument with most of the

Lutheran Fathers. Insofar as the Fathers articulated scriptural theology, they could be trusted. Of course, the Lutheran Fathers were considered orthodox because they correctly interpreted the

Bible. As noted in Chapter One, the Confessions were held to be authoritative because they reflected scriptural doctrine. Therefore, while Walther’s placement of scripture as the judge of the Fathers was true to the Lutheran doctrine of sola scriptura, it did not diminish his reliance upon the Fathers. It justified it. While Walther claimed that “he who does not subject human writings to critical appraisal is a papist,” one who critically appraised the admittedly human writings found in the Confessions and deemed them in accordance with scripture was a true

Lutheran with permission to quote them at will. In the same essay in which Walther critiques those who blindly follow the Fathers, he also argued that “when a teaching is already generally recognized as a scriptural doctrine, then one may without objection quote at length from the writings of the Fathers in support of it…because very often the Church Fathers confirm a doctrine from Scripture much better than one can do on his own.”349 Having determined that the

Fathers’ doctrine is scriptural, one could rely upon their articulation of those doctrines since it was unlikely that one could rearticulate the Word as pristinely as those sixteenth and seventeenth century theologians who were intimately involved in recovering the Gospel from various heresies. Thus was the nature of Walther’s theological methodology. Though Walther tested the

Confessions and the Fathers with scripture in his theological studies, as a Lutheran he naturally did not find them lacking, and he accepted their authority.

349 Ibid., 381. 119 The Fathers not only provided a strong basis for church doctrine due to their theological unity with scripture but also due to their usefulness in providing a unifying language for the church that preserved primitive Lutheran doctrine. Walther firmly believed that language mattered, noting in a 1859 article in the synodical theological journal Lehre und Wehre that the saying “He who coins new words also brings forth new doctrines” applied equally to orthodox theologians as well as heterodox, “although they do not always heed it and so do great harm to the divine truth and hence to the Church.”350 Innovation was overrated if it introduced new doctrine and divided the church. Even by rearticulating an old doctrine in a new way, theologians, despite their best orthodox intensions, could subvert truth. In order to prevent this,

Walther, quoting the Lutheran scholastic William Leyser, advised theologians to be humble, and

“It is a mark of modesty not only to believe, as the Church believes, but also to speak as the

Church speaks.”351 In other words, they ought to use “Church language,” which developed as the church needed to articulate biblical truth in reaction to heresy.352 This fulfilled the prophetic office of the Church by correctly expounding scripture.353

By adopting the “Church language” of the Fathers, the Christian demonstrated his loyalty to his faith. Walther argued that “in this way he might demonstrate his sincere oneness with his spiritual mother and also manifest his loyalty to her thereby, and conversely renounce all heretics, schismatics, and conceited eccentrics and withdraw from them.”354 While use of traditional theological language did not make one a Lutheran, it certainly revealed where one stood in relation to the faith. Refusal to adopt the Fathers’ language or to “progress” beyond it

350 Walther, Church Fellowship, 45. 351 Ibid., 45. 352 Ibid., 45-46. 353 Ibid., 46. 354 Ibid., 49. 120 raised Walther’s ire and concern, since he found it nigh impossible “to cite an example of an individual who rejected the Church’s words and yet sincerely accepted the Church’s concepts.

Almost always the opposite has manifested itself, namely, that those who refused to adopt the

Church’s way of speaking did so because they had already come into conflict with the Church’s faith.”355 New language led to rationalism, liberalism, enthusiasm, and all other manners of heresy. Walther was not alone in his attitude. F. C. D. Wyneken, Walther’s dear friend and successor as synodical president, believed that adopting new theological language granted Satan into the church: “The devil well knows that when he has broken the uniformity of speaking in matters of doctrine and the faith, he has not only robbed the Church of her banner and weakened the power of her witness. He will soon destroy the unity of understanding, tear asunder doctrine and the faith, and bring bewildering squabbling and bitter fights in the body once unified. Through these, the body itself will be undermined and destroyed.”356 Orthodoxy, therefore, was not just a matter of belief. It was also a matter of language.

Both Walther and Wyneken recognized the power of language in the Missouri Synod’s primitivist project. Just as divine truth was found in the active Word of God, so that truth was also captured and reflected through the human words of sixteenth and seventeenth century

Lutheran theologians. Truth was unchangeable, and therefore words that had already succeeded in articulating it should not be modified. Wyneken believed that “[the Church] has one and the same unchangeable truth in which she lives and which she confesses. In matters of the faith and doctrine, she speaks in a unified manner.”357 The Church stood in stark contrast to the world, the

Satanic dominion of which was revealed through “the confusion of languages” resulting from

355 Ibid., 49. 356 Friedrich Wyneken, “How Can the Synod Remain United?”, in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 381. 357 Ibid., 380. 121 Babel.358 The Church’s unified language demonstrated its divine authorship and protection. Its judgment concerning truth and heresy was equally valid in the sixteenth as well as the nineteenth century. Truth was truth.

By using the theological language of the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, Walther, Wyneken, and other Missouri Synod pastors communicated to their congregants that they preserved that truth. Wyneken noted that “When uncommon language is used, a person may well conclude that there is something different behind the words. He will fear that with the acceptance of a new manner of speaking, a new doctrine is also on the way. At the same time, he fears that the old truth is being given up along with the old common expression that had been so acceptable to his understanding and was made so valuable to him and dear to his heart.”359 Wyneken’s channeling of a layman’s reaction to a sermon using new theological jargon captured the essence of the nineteenth century Missouri Synod’s self-understanding of its theological methodology. Walther and his confessional Lutheran allies in the Midwest practiced repristination theology, a peculiarly Lutheran technical phrase that refers to attempts to “repristinate” or restore earlier, purer forms of theology.360 Critics of Walther, noting the omnipresent quotation of the Fathers found in his publications, accused him of “citation theology” and thus lacking any theological originality. Walther debated this description of the Missouri Synod’s (and his) theology, but he did not necessarily consider the charge to be negative.361 Rather, he simply followed biblical truth reflected in the writings of the Confessions, Luther, and the Fathers and applied them to the nineteenth century. According to historian Robert Kolb, Walther “rejected any view of Lutheran

358 Ibid., 380. 359 Ibid., 381. 360 For the best description of repristination theology, see Quentin F. Wesselschmidt, “Repristination Theology and the Doctrinal Position of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” in Light for our World: Essays Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri (St. Louis: Concordia Seminary, 1989), 83-98. 361 Kolb, 472. 122 Orthodoxy as dead. True Orthodoxy meant the application of the living Word of God, as law and as gospel, to the lives of people.”362 Thus, even if Walther lacked theological originality, he applied the Fathers to the nineteenth century. He was not preserving their theology for its own sake. Rather, to him, the theology articulated by the sixteenth century Confessions and seventeenth century dogmaticians was equally as true and relevant to nineteenth century

Missouri as it was seventeenth century Germany. Primitive truth was always true regardless of the context.

Comparing Mercersburg and Concordia: Competing Approaches to the Fathers in the

Nineteenth Century

In the mid- to late nineteenth century, Walther was hardly alone in his interest in applying patristics and church history to his nineteenth century context. While he was repristinating

Lutheran scholastic theology, Reformed intellectuals such as John Williamson Nevin, Philip

Schaff, and others associated with Mercersburg Theology similarly gravitated towards the

Fathers as a cure for the ills of American Christianity.363 Nevin and Schaff, though, were not restorationists. Rather than holding a particular period in church history as representative of pristine truth, they believed that theology constantly developed over time by the guidance of the

Holy Spirit just as a human body matures over the course of a lifetime. Nevin and Schaff’s organic theory of church development highlights the nature of Walther’s primitivism, which held that there were essentially no “open” theological questions that could be answered by the

362 Ibid., 475. 363 For overviews of Mercersburg Theology, see Linden J. DeBie, Speculative Theology and Common-Sense Religion: Mercersburg and the Conservative Roots of American Religion, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2008); D. G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin: Calvinist, American Reformed Biographies (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005); and James Hastings Nichols, Romanticism in American Theology: Nevin and Schaff at Mercersburg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). 123 church’s development, since the church did not develop. Rather, all theological answers can be acquired by triangulating scripture, the Confessions, and the writings of the Fathers.

Nevin and Schaff viewed American evangelicalism, at its worst, as rootless and divorced from history. In particular, Nevin was horrified by revival practices such as the “anxious bench” associated with the Second , which he compared to “Phrygian .”364

Writing in 1844 to members of his German Reformed Church, Nevin accused Methodists of imperialistically foisting upon other churches a foreign method that sought to overwhelm the theology of the Reformation with “a different theory of religion, that stands in no fellowship with the views, either of the fathers and founders of the Church, or of its most evangelical representatives in modern Germany.”365 For Nevin, the answer was a return to the Heidelberg

Catechism, which proposed a completely separate system of religion.366 The Catechism’s system was rooted in the historic church, since “it was on this system emphatically the Reformers of the

16th century relied in carrying forward the great work, for which they were raised up by the Spirit of God.”367 Indeed, Nevin compares Methodist evangelists using the “new measures” to the

Anabaptists, whom Luther referred to as “fanatics” or “enthusiasts.”368 Nevin and Walther similarly diagnosed American evangelicalism’s sickness and proscribed a return to the Church

Fathers as the remedy.

Despite their similarity across Lutheran and Reformed divisions in their respect for the

Fathers, Nevin and Schaff disagreed with Walther concerning the nature of church history and

364 John Williamson Nevin, The Anxious Bench, Antichrist, and the Sermon on Catholic Unity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, n.d.), 16. 365 Ibid., 5. 366 Ibid., 62. 367 Ibid., 74. 368 Ibid., 74. For a full analysis of Nevin’s critique of the “new measures,” see Hart, 85-103. Schaff’s critique of American Christianity is described in Stephen R. Graham, Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip Schaff’s Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century American Religion (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995). 124 the Fathers’ role within it. For the Mercersburg theologians, drawing upon the works of German

Romantic theologians, the church was organic and therefore constantly developing. According to

James Hasting Nichols, “The guiding metaphor in Schaf’s [sic] historical thought was the idea of biological growth, in which change is regulated by an inner power, preserving unity through diverse stages of maturation. Each new stage both negates and fulfills its predecessor.”369 Schaff argued that “the Reformation is the legitimate offspring, the greatest act of the Catholic Church; and on this account of true catholic nature itself, in its genuine conception.”370 It was “a new birth from the womb of its life in the old form.”371 For Schaff, the church was a living organism whose development paralleled human life: “The church, not less than every one of its members, has its periods of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. This involves no contradiction to the absolute character of Christianity; for the progress of the church, outward or inward, is never in the strict sense creative, but in the way only of reception, organic assimilation, and expansion.”372 All development “consists of an apprehension always more and more profound of the life and doctrine of Christ and his apostles….”373 Schaff had little use for primitivists who believed that they could restore the church to a lost purity found in a past age. He condemned

Puritanism, writing disdainfully that “it has no respect whatever for history. It would restore pure, primitive Christianity, with entire disregard to the many centuries of development that lie between, as though all had been labor in vain, and the Lord had not kept his own promise to be with the church always to the end of the world.”374 It was only fitting that the Puritans’ descendants devolved into Unitarians, since “he that tramples father and mother underfoot has no

369 Nichols, 116. 370 Philip Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism, Lancaster Series on the Mercersburg Theology, vol. 1 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 73. 371 Ibid., 75 (emphasis in original). 372 Ibid., 76. 373 Ibid., 76. 374 Ibid., 146. 125 reason to find fault with his children, when they treat him in the same way….”375 Instead, since the church was the body of Christ, just as a human body it was grow, develop, and blossom over time, constantly maturing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To Schaff, primitivism resulted in a church suffering from stunted growth. When Nevin and Schaff appealed to the Fathers, they called American churches to further development rather than repristination of the orthodox church of the past.

For Walther, on the other hand, repristination was the goal, since God’s church did not develop. Instead, truth was constant from one age to the next, theology did not grow organically, and therefore the language of the Fathers, representing primitive purity, was constantly relevant and reliable. Walther’s sharp contrast with Mercersburg Theology is evident in his qualified rejection of the existence of “open” theological questions. In 1868, Walther admitted that, hypothetically, open questions existed in the sense that “agreement in answering them does not belong to the unity of faith and doctrine that is demanded in God’s Word, nor to the conditions for churchly, fraternal, or collegial fellowship.”376 However, Walther found such cases few and far between and believed that, in most situations, Christians attempting to label certain theological topics as “open questions” did so in order to subvert or rebel against God’s Word, which spoke unambiguously on matters of doctrine. Since the Bible was clear, the Church also must be clear and therefore “may not adulterate or eliminate anything contained in Holy

Scripture but must earnestly hold every biblical truth, even if it should appear insignificant, oppose every unscriptural error, should it seem ever so unimportant.”377 It is the duty of the

375 Ibid., 146. 376 Walther, Church Fellowship, 141. 377 Ibid., 101. 126 Church “to criticize, refute, oppose, contend against, and reprove whatever error becomes manifest in the teaching of those who wish to be our brethren….”378

The Church’s role was to confess truth rather than develop it, because Christian truth, in

Walther’s view, did not develop. Walther argued that “it is not true that our came into existence gradually and that hence there are articles of faith ‘that are in the process of formation, and others which as yet have either not at all or merely by way of beginning been drawn into the stream of events in which dogmas take shape.’”379 Tracing this view to rationalists and Catholics,

Walther rejected it. In his view, “this theory opposes the clear teaching of the Word of God that the Church at all times is one, and only one.”380 Unity of the church required unity of doctrine.

Doctrine did not develop from a kerygma but rather was eternally present in the Word, which unified God’s people from the earliest days of creation to the present: “If we accordingly have to believe that even the Old and New Testament churches in their teachings are one, how much more is this true of the Church of the New Testament in its various periods of existence! Paul states clearly that the Church is ‘built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets’ (Ephesians

2:20). This foundation of the apostles and prophets, however, is nothing else than the total number of articles of faith taught by the apostles and prophets.”381 This did not mean that “the

Church from century to century accumulates an ever-growing fund of divine teachings and according to the law of historical development arrives at constantly enhanced depths and riches of knowledge.” Indeed, the Church “is compelled to formulate with increasing precision the pure doctrine that it possesses in order that fraudulent errorists may be unmasked and false teachings be kept from creeping into it through ambiguous phraseology; but this does not imply that the

378 Ibid., 104. 379 Ibid., 111. 380 Ibid., 112. 381 Ibid., 112-113. 127 number of its dogmas grows; they are through this activity merely safeguarded ever more carefully against the danger of becoming perverted.”382 However, “increasing precision” does not imply development of new understandings or new dogmas. Rather, orthodox theology simply

“receives new confirmation, or the Church becomes aware of certain inferences and corollaries of its dogmas that it had not noticed before.”383 Of course, Walther’s views correlated with those of the Lutheran Fathers, whom he cited at length to prove his point.

Walther’s view of doctrinal development contrasted sharply with that of his contemporaries Nevin and Schaff. Though all three were influenced to varying degrees by

German Romanticism, they took different approaches to theological truth. For Schaff and Nevin, the Church Fathers and Reformers were steps along a path towards truth, which developed over time. The Church was organic, and thus truth developed as the body of Christ’s theology matured. There was no sense in attempting to repristinate ancient forms of theology, since such a move would be retrograde, surrendering present and future truths for passé theology. Thus, the

Mercersburg theologians disdained primitivism. For Walther, however, repristinating primitive truth was the goal of theology because truth was constant. Christian theology rested upon the

Word of God, which was eternal and fully sufficient for all doctrine. Therefore, theology was not a matter of developing new truths but rather properly reflecting timeless truth. There were virtually no open questions. All questions had already been answered by God’s Word, and inevitably those answers had been articulated by the Fathers. Since no development was needed,

Walther could rely upon the Fathers. If biblical truth was timeless, and the Fathers correctly reflected that truth in their writings, innovation was useless at best and potentially harmful to the

382 Ibid., 113. 383 Ibid., 114. 128 unity of the church. Walther’s primitive impulse thus led him to a different application of church history than that of contemporary theologians with a similar respect for the others.

Conclusion

On May 7, 1887, C. F. W. Walther died in St. Louis. At his funeral at Trinity Church,

Heinrich Christian Schwan, the Missouri Synod’s third president, gave the funeral sermon.

Schwan wondered aloud if God had taken Walther from the Missouri Synod because did not attend properly to his teachings. Schwan lamented: “That dear man was God’s gift to us. Have we all rightly acknowledged this gift? We admired him. We honored him. But did this honor really come for the right reason, and did it happen in the right way? Did we honor God when we honored this man? Did we receive God’s Word from his mouth precisely as God’s Word?”384

Five years later, a mausoleum was constructed over his grave. After the assembly sang the old

Lutheran hymn “Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense,” Francis Pieper, the Missouri Synod’s leading dogmatician, preached at the dedication, declaring “there is no known theologian of our century who had exceeded Walther in that which forms the very essence of theology, namely, the clear and certain knowledge of the doctrine revealed in the Scriptures and the ability to present this doctrine convincingly.”385 Pieper might have said that Walther was a master repristinator of the pure truth of primitive Lutheranism. However, he did not need to articulate it in that manner. The mausoleum did it for him. Standing in the center of the old section of Concordia Cemetery, south of downtown St. Louis, the exterior of the mausoleum is engraved with Trinitarian symbols and

Luther roses, indicating to passersby the deceased’s religious affiliation (see Figure 2.1).

384 H. C. Schwan, “Sermon for the Funeral of C. F. W. Walther,” in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 539. 385 Francis Pieper, “Address at the Dedication of the Walther Mausoleum,” in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 601. 129 However, the most telling feature remains inside. Watching over his own grave as well as that of his wife is a life sized statue of Walther. His left hand grasps a copy of the Lutheran Confessions

(“Concordia”) standing atop a Bible. Even in death, Walther continues to cling to the

Confessions. Meanwhile, an hour’s drive southeast of St. Louis, in the community of Red Bud,

Illinois, lies Martin Stephan, resting in a simple grave in a rural parish cemetery surrounded by cornfields.

Together, Martin Stephan and C. F. W. Walther constructed a primitivist version of

Lutheranism in North America that has remained a central religious force in the Midwest to the present day. Unlike other contemporary American restorationists, who sought to recreate the

New Testament church, Stephan and Walther sought to restore the primitive Lutheranism of

Martin Luther, the Confessions, and the Lutheran Fathers. Insofar as Lutheranism defined the purity of a church by its orthodoxy, the Saxon immigrants lacked the same sustaining impetus as

Latter Day Saints or Stone-Campbellites in duplicating the structure of the first century church.

Instead, since they recognized the Reformation and the Age of Orthodoxy as the pinnacle of theological truth and as a correct reflection of the Bible, Stephan, Walther, and the rest of the

Saxon immigrants used that period as their standard for restoration.

Stephan and Walther maintain an equal partnership in bequeathing a confessional legacy to the Missouri Synod. While the synod’s historiography has diminished Stephan’s theological importance due to his authoritarianism and sexual scandals, Stephan’s confessionalism was not rejected when the Saxons sent Stephan across the Mississippi River. Rather, Walther used his former mentor’s theological traditionalism to stabilize the Saxon community following Stephan’s departure by applying the Lutheran Confessions to the crisis. While some of the perceived excesses of Stephanism, such as the episcopacy, were dropped, the theological methodology

130 remained the same. Walther continued Stephan’s primitivism by attempting to “repristinate”

Lutheran scholastic theology. While Walther was quick to note that the Confessions and the writings of the Lutheran Fathers possessed a secondary status of authority in comparison to the

Bible, as proper rearticulations of scripture they became the standards by which Walther restored

“pure and unadulterated” Lutheranism. Unlike other theologians who viewed the Church Fathers as cures for American Christianity’s ills, Walther’s primitivism forced him to grant them a degree of finality that was unparalleled in American Protestantism. Since truth was constant and has been eternally present through the Word, no theological development, except from increased precision, is impossible. There were no open theological questions which could not be answered through an honest search of scripture and the writings of the Fathers, since they already answered theological questions in a manner that could not be surpassed.

Walther was one of many restorationist theologians who spread their teachings throughout the Midwest in the nineteenth century. Contextualizing Stephan and Walther’s project through the lens of primitivism integrates the early history of the Missouri Synod with a familiar narrative of American religious history. While Walther’s brand of primitivism was unique due to its standard, it fits a pattern followed by countless other religious movements that developed in the American West. With “God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine pure to eternity shall prevail” as his motto, Walther set out to recreate sixteenth century Lutheranism as pure

Christianity in the same way that Joseph Smith attempted to restore lost truths of ancient

Christianity. However, Walther did not need golden plates. He possessed the Book of Concord.

131

Figure 2.1 – C. F. W. Walther’s grave in Concordia Cemetery, St. Louis (photo by the author)

132 CHAPTER 3

THE LONELY LUTHERAN: HERMANN SASSE AND CONFESSIONAL ECUMENISM

Naked, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by a noose wrapped around a hook implanted into the

Flasssenbürg prison wall on April 9, 1945. Witnesses to the executions of Bonhoeffer and his six fellow inmates that morning reported the process took approximately six hours.386 Since that day,

Bonhoeffer has been the ecumenical face of global Lutheranism. A veritable cottage market consisting of independent films, theatre productions, novels, oratorios, and even operas has developed promoting his legacy. Bonhoeffer has proven useful in American politics as well, promoted as a renewing source of an ethics of African American resistance or as a precursor to conservative Christian political activism.387 Additionally, theologians and religious studies scholars have focused tremendous amounts of attention on Bonhoeffer’s unfinished, undeveloped theology, parsing out its mid-century context as well as its contemporary relevance.

Due to this widespread obsession and attention, Bonhoeffer posthumously has become the most influential Lutheran of the twentieth century.

Though Bonhoeffer’s ascribed importance is well-deserved, the “Bonhoeffer

Phenomenon” is also socially constructed due to the desired narratives of various actors within

Lutheran churches, the academic community, and society at large.388 Bonhoeffer’s resistance to

Nazism and his grisly martyrdom serves as a point of distinction and distraction from the

386 Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 391-392. 387 See Reggie L. Williams, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethics of Resistance (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), and Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nasvhille: Thomas Nelson, 2010). Metaxas makes the political implications of his biography explicit in an interview with conservative commentator Glenn Back (“Glenn Beck: Why Dietrich Bonhoeffer Matters,” FoxNews.com, December 10, 2010, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/12/06/glenn-beck-why-dietrich-bonhoeffer-matters.html). 388 See Stephen R. Haynes, The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004). 133 German Christian Movement composed of Lutheran scholars, pastors, and laypeople who collaborated with the Nazi regime.389 Bonhoeffer not only died a martyr’s death for his opposition to Nazism, but in the process he also partially redeemed Lutheranism from a tremendous Teutonic blood guilt. Similarly, his death and life’s work are often interpreted as a witness for social justice and liberal religion, two emphases that have been at the focal points of developments in American Lutheranism and the American academy since World War II.

“Religionless Christianity,” a mesmerizing yet mysterious phrase found in one of his letters from prison, has provided much fodder for theologians and scholars attempting to reconstruct (or deconstruct) Christianity while questioning the connection between praxis and religious institutions. From the alternative perspective, Bonhoeffer’s resistance to Nazi anti-Semitism is prescient of modern pro-life activism, as conservative thinkers parallel the situation of Jewry under Hitler to the predicament of the unborn post-Roe v. Wade. Regardless of one’s theological or political persuasion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is useful.

Bonhoeffer’s utility is not only found in his flexibly interpreted theology, but in his ecumenism. Believing that the moral and theological evils of Nazism took precedence over the perceived minutiae of theological controversies, Bonhoeffer united with Reformed theologians such as Karl Barth to compose confessions and build ecclesiastical alliances designed to resist the Nazi-infused German Christian Movement. This ecumenism makes Bonhoeffer an appealing historical figure to many American Christians. Historians have recognized that ecumenism is central to the development of modern liberal Protestantism, with one scholar going so far as to

389 For a small sampling of the historiography detailing this failure, see Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich, 2nd ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); and Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 134 relabel liberal Protestantism as “ecumenical Protestantism.”390 Matthew Hedstrom’s study of liberal Protestant book clubs tried to infuse ecumenical sensibilities into its membership.391

Furthermore, ecumenism is central to narratives of religious conservatism as well. For instance, though different in tone and hostile to one another, both Carl McIntire’s American Christian

Council of Churches and Harold Ockenga’s National Association of Evangelicals united churches across theological boundaries in a common cause (namely to oppose liberalism). With this in mind, it is natural that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is seen as a hero for both conservative and liberal Protestants in North America, as, in of itself, ecumenism is inimical to neither.

Within this context, the Missouri Synod’s decision to reemphasize the career and thought of Hermann Sasse, one of Bonhoeffer’s contemporaries, marks the deliberate construction of a unique identity that separates confessional Lutherans from liberal Lutherans and evangelical

Protestants. Schooled in the Harnackean liberalism that defined turn-of-the-century German theology, World War I awoke Sasse to its banality in view of the trenches. While the Great War caused him to doubt theological liberalism, studying abroad at Hartford Theological Seminary in the midst of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy convinced him of its theological vacuity

(as well as that of American populist fundamentalism). Soon thereafter, Nazi influence in

German churches gave birth to the German Christian Movement, which permeated wide stretches of the German territorial churches and resulted in a pan-German union church.

However, the antidote, Sasse thought, was just as deadly. Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (with whom Sasse shared a common academic pedigree and, occasionally, a collaborative relationship), and hundreds of pastors ignored their confessional standards to erect the

390 David Hollinger, After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 391 See Matthew Hedstrom, The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 135 Confessing Church. By ignoring the biblical truths of the Lutheran Confessions, Sasse lamented,

Bonhoeffer and his compatriots exchanged one heresy for yet another – unionism. Sadly, the aftermath of World War II did not remedy the situation, as the German churches continued their drive for unification, and American confessional churches, such as the Missouri Synod, seemingly supported these efforts. Indeed, American confessional Lutheran theology, in Sasse’s mind, was little more than “citation theology,” relying upon nigh scriptural quotations of the

Lutheran fathers to adjudicate present theological conundrums rather than creatively rearticulating an ancient theology for today. Feeling homeless, Sasse retreated as far from

Erlangen as he could, accepted a call to teach at a small Lutheran seminary in South Australia, where he served the remainder of his career in self-imposed exile as a seminary professor in

Lutheranism’s hinterlands.

Though Sasse’s footprint has been smaller than that of Bonhoeffer, his works have been rediscovered and recirculated by theologians within the Missouri Synod and other confessional

Lutheran church bodies. Academics and synodical hierarchs, such as President Matthew

Harrison, have constructed the historical memory of Herman Sasse as a commentary on ecumenism as well as the present state of confessional Lutheranism. Whereas Bonhoeffer’s biography suggests to its admirers the necessity for a community of faith to strive for a just society, Sasse’s life sets a different trajectory, emphasizing the overriding importance of doctrinal orthodoxy and confessionalism for the health and unity of the church.

This chapter analyzes the role of Hermann Sasse in contemporary confessional Lutheran theology and practice vis-à-vis ecumenism. First, the contours of Sasse’s life and career will be traced, emphasizing particularly the transatlantic nature of his Lutheran confessionalism as well as his involvement in the Kirchenkampf and its aftermath. Second, Sasse’s postwar circular

136 letters to Lutheran pastors will be analyzed with an eye towards his application of amillennial . As Sasse perceived the collapse of confessional Lutheranism in the postwar years,

Sasse interpreted current events through the lens of classical Lutheran , which allowed him simultaneously to straddle crisis and hope in his analysis of midcentury

Lutheranism. Third, Sasse’s letters will be examined as examples of the construction of confessional Lutheran identity. Between 2014 and 2016, Matthew Harrison, the president of the

Missouri Synod, published the entirety of Sasse’s letters in three critical volumes. Harrison’s creative editing is noteworthy, as the president-editor uses the editorial apparatus to engage in theological arguments with liberal Lutherans and Protestants as well as Sasse himself, when the dead theologian fell outside of Harrison’s understanding of orthodox Lutheranism. In doing so,

Harrison uses Sasse as a tool by which he reconstructs the Missouri Synod’s identity as an

American bulwark of confessional Lutheranism in the midst of five decades of intradenominational strife.

The comparison to Bonhoeffer is stark, as are the two theologian’s versions of ecumenism. Unlike Bonhoeffer’s Confessing Church, Sasse found it impossible to compromise either politically or theologically. Instead, Sasse’s ecumenism relied upon confessional fidelity, believing that adherence to biblical standards without compromise would draw other churches to his position and thereby create unity. Though this resulted in exile and loneliness, Sasse charted a course idealized by confessional Lutherans in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Studying Sasse’s life and how his life has been constructed illuminate the inherent tensions between modern ecumenism and Lutheran confessionalism.

137 Harnackeans in Foxholes: Sasse’s Early Theological Education

Hermann Sasse was born on July 17, 1895, in Sonnewalde, Thuringia, into a lower middle class family. Raised in a family that valued the humanities, Sasse left Thuringia in 1913 to study theology and classical philology at the University of Berlin, the center of classic German theological liberalism.392 There he studied under the preeminent church historian Adolf von

Harnack, leader of the Luther Renaissance Karl Holl, and New Testament scholar Adolf

Deissman, who would become Sasse’s doktorvater.

From his professors, Sasse imbibed the historical critical approach to Christianity.

Harnack famously wished to sweep away the husks of tradition to reduce Christianity to its essential kerygma, or the kernel of the gospel, and he sought to accomplish this by focusing on the historical, social, and cultural factors of church history rather than the miraculous.

Ultimately, Harnack located that kerygma in the proposition that “God is love,” the essence of

Harnack’s construction of his historical Jesus.393 Karl Holl pursued a similarly historical project concerning Martin Luther. Originally a scholar of early Christianity interested in the conflict between Pauline and Jewish Christianities, Holl transferred his focus to Martin Luther and the

Reformation by the time Sasse arrived at the university, leading a resurgence of academic interest in Luther known as the Luther Renaissance, which coalesced in the Germany academy following the catastrophe of World War I.394 Forthrightly describing his Luther scholarship as ein Kriegswerk (“a war work”), Holl favorably applied Luther’s theology to Wilhemine German nationalism and theories of the Volk.395 Sasse would later recollect that, during his university

392 Ronald R. Feuerhan, “Hermann Sasse: Theologian of the Church,” in John R. Stephenson and Thomas M. Winger, eds., Hermann Sasse: A Man for Our Times? (St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press, 1998), 14. 393 See Adolf von Harnack, What is Christianity? Fortress Texts in Modern Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986). 394 See James M. Stayer, Martin Luther, German Saviour: German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917-1933 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 18-47. 395 Ibid., 24. 138 years, “Luther research was often a purely academic pursuit,” an attitude he condemned as abetting a marriage between Lutheran theology and German nationalism.

Berlin’s stimulating intellectual environment, however, was disrupted by World War I. A day after listening to Holl lecture on “What Did Luther Understand by Religion?”, Sasse was called to the Western Front in Flanders.396 At age 21, Sasse enlisted in the 51st Infantry Regiment as a sergeant. Sasse briskly described his war experiences as follows: during a Lutheran Divine

Service, “the Lord’s Supper was celebrated; some people went to receive Holy Communion, and then we went up to Passchendaele. We were a hundred and fifty men, fully equipped and a full company. On the sixth we came back and six men reported. The others were killed or had disappeared in the fire, the water and the gas of one of the worst battles of the First World War.

When we came back, we heard of the Russian Revolution.”397

World War I had a tremendous impact on Sasse, as it did on a generation of prominent

European theologians and pastors, such as Karl Barth and . Writing in 1957, forty years after his experiences in the trenches, Sasse remembered one of the main lessons he learned from the war, that humans are passive in history: “The inner logic of all history – and, above all, of a development which plays itself out at a breathtaking pace in this century – is not designed by men. We men do not make history; at best we live through it – or better, we suffer it.”398 Rather,

“the logic of world history is the logic of divine judgment over nations and kingdoms.” History was far from a march of progress, as his liberal professors had taught at Berlin. Rather, “the students who went into the battlefields of the First World War with Harnack’s theology, lost this

396 Hermann Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors, 3 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2013-2015), 1:ix. 397 Hermann Sasse, “The Impact of Bultmannism on American Lutheranism, with Special Reference to His Demythologization of the New Testament,” Lutheran Synod Quarterly vol. 5, no. 4 (June 1965): 4. For details of the Battle of Passchendaele, see Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Passchendaele: The Untold Story (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), and Jack Sheldon, The German Army at Passchendaele (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2007). 398 Sasse, Letters, 3:59-60. 139 theology. You can perhaps live on this in happy times, but you can’t die with it.” Therefore,

“liberal theology and the optimistic view of man died in the catastrophe of the First World

War.”399

While some sought to overcome their wartime experiences through the Bohemian lifestyle, Sasse, much like Karl Barth, turned towards a more conservative source of succor400.

Sasse passed his theological exams and was ordained to the Lutheran ministry on June 13, 1920.

After serving in several parishes immediately afterwards, he settled into an urban, working class parish in Oranienburg.401 As a young pastor, Sasse was consumed with questions haunting him from his experiences in the trenches. He recalled that “in the drumfire of the Western front the question of whether Christianity was the absolute religion and how one could prove this totally lost its significance in comparison to the real questions of life and death, guilt and atonement, judgment and forgiveness.”402 Not only was Harnack’s search for the kerygma unsettled but also his historical critical approach to Christian theology. Sasse questioned the bifurcation between dogma and history and its effects on Lutheranism as well as its emphasis on experience as the guiding force in theology. Sasse described the root of this “theology of experience” as the belief

399 Sasse, “The Impact of Bultmannism on American Lutheranism, with Special Reference to His Demythologization of the New Testament,” 5. Here Sasse echoes Karl Barth, who wrote that “a whole world of , ethics, dogmatics and preaching, which I had hitherto held to be essentially trustworthy, was shaken to the foundations, and with it, all the other writings of the German theologians” (Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His life from letters and autobiographical texts, trans. John Bowden [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976], 81). 400 Wilhelm and Marion Pauck, in this their biography of Paul Tillich, emphasize his activity in the Bohemian lifestyle of post-Wilhelmine Germany in relation to his traumatic experiences and disappointments during World War I. See Wilhelm and Marion Pauck, Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 79- 93. For Barth’s conservative turn following World War I, see Busch, Karl Barth His life from letters and autobiographical texts; Richard E. Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004); and Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 401 Feuerhahn, 15. 402 Sasse, Letters, 3:62. 140 that “I the Christian am to me, the theologian, the proper object of my science.”403 Following

World War I, however, nascent neo-orthodox theologians, such as Karl Barth, argued that “not religion but the objective Word of God as they found it in the Bible was the task, the object of theology, and consequently, the task of the preacher.”404 In this, they perceived of themselves as united with the church fathers and Reformers, whom, they argued, focused on God’s revelation through the Word rather than human religion, which was Schleiermacher and Harnack’s subject of study. This rising theological movement heavily influenced Pastor Sasse, and he took these concerns and questions with him to the United States as he studied as an exchange student at

Hartford Theological Seminary.

Sasse in America: Encountering Confessional Protestantism

In 1937, Sasse wrote that “personally I must confess that it was in America that I first learned fully to appreciate what it means to be loyal to the Lutheran Confessions.”405 He made a similar comment to Swedish pastor Tom Hardt: “What Lutheranism is, I learned in America

1925/1926.”406 This is an odd comment for two reasons. First, when Sasse traveled to the United

States as a theological exchange student in 1925, he was an ordained Lutheran pastor. Second,

Sasse did not travel to the deeply Lutheran heartlands of the Midwest or the tradition’s historic refuge in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rather, he studied at Hartford Theological Seminary, a liberal Congregationalist seminary in Connecticut. Sasse’s nascent confessionalism developed as a reaction to the Social Gospel theology espoused by liberal Protestants as well as the

403 Hermann Sasse, “The Impact of Bultmannism on American Lutheranism, with Special Reference to His Demythologization of the New Testament,”6. 404 Ibid., 6. 405 Hermann Sasse, Here We Stand: Nature and Character of the Lutheran Church, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Clovelly Park, Australia: Australian Church Resources, 1966), 10-11. 406 Letter to Tom Hardt (June 18, 1958), qtd. In Feuerhahn, “Hermann Sasse: Theologian of the Church,” 15. 141 burgeoning ecumenical movement. Viewing the Social Gospel as blindly optimistic and the church union movement as intellectually dishonest, Sasse turned to conservative Lutheran theology as a refuge against these movements. Sasse’s conversion to confessionalism is properly understood within battles over ecumenism that were central to the Fundamentalist-Modernist

Controversy.

At Hartford, Sasse encountered American Social Gospel theology, and he was unimpressed.407 Following his time in the United States, he recorded his observations in a 1927 essay entitled “American Christianity and the Church” (Americanisches Kirchentum), which became an influential introduction to contemporary American Christianity amongst German theologians and pastors.408 Sasse begins his analysis of American religion by describing religion’s central role in American society. Echoing de Tocqueville, he described the high levels of religious participation and how churches maintain that trend through self-secularization. Sasse complains that “[American] churches have only maintained their position in the life of the culture by retreating step by step in the face of the demands of modern life. They have opened their doors in part to modern civilization, which has endangered the purity and depth of the faith.”409 Thus, Sasse indicted Baptist churches that manipulate their interior lighting during

407 For discussions of American Social Gospel theology, see Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, 1805-1900 (Louisville: Westminster Press, 2001), 261-334; Christopher Hodge Evans, The Kingdom is Always But Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004); and Ronald C. White, Jr., and C. Howard Hopkins, The Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976). 408 Dietrich Bonhoeffer read Sasse’s essay before his arrival in America in 1930. See Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 105. For a theological analysis of Bonhoeffer’s much different experience in the United States, see Reggie L. Williams, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethics of Resistance. 409 Hermann Sasse, “American Christianity and the Church,” in The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, Volume 1 (1927-1939) (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2001), 29. 142 prayer or provide sports clubs (“Naturally they come to Bible class, but only if sports are included. Why shouldn’t the church have a flashy football club?”).410

American Christianity, according to Sasse, did not challenge the United States. Instead, it identified itself with the nation in an errand of perpetual progress. “If Jesus were living today he would, in principle, affirm American civilization,” Sasse noted. “There is a pre-established harmony between Christianity and civilization. If they do not coincide then we are still incomplete Christians in an unfulfilled civilization. But both have the same goal: the perfection of the church coincides with the perfection of civilization.”411 This, in Sasse’s view, was the essence of Social Gospel theology (“if one can call it theology”), “the doctrine of the perfection of society through the Gospel,” which resulted in theological flexibility and flimsiness because it relied on practicality: “in America a theology is a plan for action, a hypothesis providing rationale for work. It is not of primary importance whether it is correct or false. The decisive question is whether or not the world can be bettered by it.”412 Sasse was confident that the Social

Gospel would inevitably collapse “by fate,” but he feared that nothing coherent or constructive would replace it, as neither Fundamentalist nor Lutheran opponents to the Social Gospel were giving serious thought to the relationship between church and culture.413

Regardless of the Social Gospel’s ultimate fate, Sasse argued that ecumenism would be entrenched in American theology, since it was the end product of the union between American society and theology that begat the Social Gospel. Sasse observed that American history consisted of a long series of unions, pointing to the creation of the United States out of disparate territories, cultures, peoples, and churches. Americans prized uniformity, and this equally applied

410 Ibid., 29. 411 Ibid., 31. 412 Ibid., 32, 33. 413 Ibid., 37. 143 to religion as much as dress styles or the Model T. Sasse claimed that “Americans can only think of the history of humanity in terms of such a process of unification, because American life is a unification process of a mass of humanity, thrown together from every nation of the old world.”414 Unity is a confessional principle for Americans, since “the general brotherhood of all men” is “articulus stantis et cadentis nationis [‘an article by which the nation stands or falls’],” modifying Martin Luther’s description of justification by faith.415 Moreover, this demand for unity is the basis of the ecumenical movement, as “the greatest movement for union in the history of the church corresponds to the great melting process, brought about by the migrations of peoples across the ocean.”416 To create “the one American church is like a dream in the souls of Americans.”417

For Sasse, however, the American dream of one national church seemed empty because it was theologically relativistic. By forcing unity upon Americans, ecumenically-minded Christians

“created a common religious atmosphere, in which the confessional lines are blurred.”418

Denominations are reduced to “service organizations” which “may keep its organizational forms, its confessions, [and] its liturgy,” as “these things are all finally unessential.”419 Sasse rejected the American, ecumenical vision of the church because he saw confessional distinctives as the heart of theology and of the church. Sasse condemned unity that rested upon an obsession with action rather than doctrine as mere relativism. “Just as one cannot conceive of the concept of the truth without granting the possibility of error,” Sasse wrote, “so our concept of church cannot be conceived of without simultaneously considering the concepts of apostasy and heresy.”420

414 Ibid., 41. 415 Ibid., 41. 416 Ibid., 41. 417 Ibid., 44. 418 Ibid., 43. 419 Ibid., 45. 420 Ibid., 47. 144 American Christianity’s problem was its inherent relativism which sacrifices truth at the altar of efficiency, unity, and pragmatism. Its failure was its “one-sided emphasis on the connection between truth and life. And a concept’s significance for life, or the outcome in life, has been made the criterion for truth.”421 The American church, according to Sasse, “is a church which has renounced the idea that it is possible to possess the truth and the requirements necessitated by that truth for carrying out its work.”422

Sasse’s rejection of Social Gospel theology and American echoed that of confessional Protestants who participated in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, which was raging around Sasse while he studied in Connecticut. Sasse was skeptical of

American fundamentalism, which he viewed as “incapable of real church formation and exerting creative influence on the culture” and stunted by its “naïve eschatology.”423 Indeed, he saw a similar disregard for theological distinctives amongst fundamentalists as he did amongst liberals.

However, his discomfort with both liberalism and fundamentalism was shared by confessional

Protestants, such as the Presbyterian biblical scholar J. Gresham Machen, who were a vocal minority within the fundamentalist movement.

While there is no direct proof that Sasse read Machen’s 1923 Christianity and

Liberalism, it seems unlikely that Sasse would not have encountered it as he studied American

Christianity and formulated his critique of it, given the book’s widespread impact particularly in

Northeastern theological circles.424 Machen condemned liberalism for transforming Christianity from a religion of doctrine into a religion of ethics and went so far as to claim that liberalism was

421 Ibid., 48. 422 Ibid., 47. 423 Ibid., 50. 424 See D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 2003 [1994]), 59-83. 145 a new, separate religion distinct from Christianity altogether.425 Similar to Sasse, Machen claimed that liberalism foundered upon the banks of anti-intellectual theological relativism, since

“if all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain,” which is nothing more than agnosticism.426

Furthermore, Machen dismissed ecumenism in nearly the same language utilized by Sasse, deeming church unity on non-doctrinal ground to be “dishonest,” since “to suppose that a man can believe that the eternal Son of God really bore the guilt of men’s sins on the Cross and at the same time regard that belief as a ‘trifle’ without bearing upon the welfare of men’s souls…is very narrow and very absurd.”427 On that basis, Machen advocated for separation between conservatives and liberals. Machen acknowledged that “the separation of naturalistic liberalism from the evangelical churches would no doubt greatly diminish the size of the churches. But

Gideon’s three hundred were more powerful than the thirty-two thousand with which the march against the Midianites began.”428 Adherence to the church’s confessions would be painful and lonely, but it was honest.429 Sasse would soon discover this in the midst of the Kirchenkampf.

Though Machen was a founder of American fundamentalism, he was frequently uncomfortable within the fundamentalist movement he promoted, and in large part this was due to his status as a confessional Protestant. American fundamentalism was pan-denominational, involving conservatives from numerous denominations. Fundamentalists were united more by similar tendencies, such as apocalypticism, political and religious populism, or militant anti-

425 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1923), 6. 426 Ibid., 17. 427 Ibid., 137. 428 Ibid., 144. This directly parallels Sasse’s comment in one of his postwar circular letters, “When will the terrible superstition of of our day cease that Jesus Christ is powerful only there where two or three million are gathered together in His name?” (Sasse, Letters, 1:16). 429 Ibid., 139. 146 liberalism, rather than common beliefs regarding eschatology, predestination, or sacramental theology.430 Though Machen moved in these circles and participated in interdenominational fundamentalist events, the theological looseness of the fundamentalist coalition troubled him.

Machen was not only concerned with the dangers of liberal theology but also those inherent in fundamentalist heterodoxy. Therefore, he took dispensationalists to task just as he did liberals.

For instance, due to his traditional , Machen objected to Presbyterian use of the

Scofield Reference Bible, which provided a dispensationalist interpretation of the Bible alongside the biblical text. This rankled dispensationalist fundamentalist Presbyterians who, in response, “succeeded in ousting Machen as president [of the Independent Board for Presbyterian

Foreign Missions] and elected a minister of a nondenominational church.”431 Machen accused the IBPFM of choosing “a mere fundamentalism” over Presbyterianism, which he equated with biblical truth.432 Dispensationalism contradicted the theology expressed by the traditional

Presbyterian confessions, and therefore Machen felt obligated to oppose it as false teaching.

Machen’s adherence to traditional confessions resulted in isolation from the larger fundamentalist movement, which valued theological breadth over rigid specificity. Indeed,

Machen’s concerns regarding American fundamentalism’s anti-confessionalism precisely paralleled those found in Sasse’s reflections on his American sojourn.

Sasse’s rejection of liberal ecumenism was a result of his engagement with American

Christianity, and it should be understood within the context of early twentieth century American

430 For studies detailing the theological breadth of the fundamentalist movement, see Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). 431 Hart, 162-163. Concerning relationships between dispensationalist fundamentalist Presbyterians and confessional Presbyterians such as Machen, see Markku Ruotsila, Fighting Fundamentalist: Carl McIntire and the Politicalization of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 38-43. 432 Ibid., 163. 147 confessional Protestantism. He rejected American Christianity for ignoring theological, confessional distinctives in favor of pragmatic action. In his critique, he echoed J. Gresham

Machen’s parallel condemnation of liberalism and fundamentalism for their equal disregard for doctrine and confessions. Sasse seemingly translated Machen’s American Presbyterian concerns into the theological dialect of Lutheranism, which he communicated to German readers curious about American Christianity as the German churches rebuilt themselves in the aftermath of the

Great War. His American experiences would be crucial as he articulated his own “confessional ecumenism” within the context of church union attempts in Nazi Germany a decade later.

Against Hitler and Bonhoeffer: Sasse’s Confessional Ecumenism

After Sasse returned to Germany, Hermann Sasse took a post as professor of New

Testament at the University of Erlangen, where he worked alongside such illustrious colleagues as and . While at Erlangen, Sasse participated in ecumenical endeavors, such as the Lausanne Conference of 1927. However, Sasse was not interested in uniting various churches under one body and one confession.433 Rather, Sasse engaged in ecumenical dialogue to discuss their theological differences while remaining honest to their confessional distinctives. However, Sasse’s ecumenical work was interrupted by the of

Nazism in the late 1920s and early 1930s. While contemporaries and occasional allies such as

Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in the Confessing Church Movement as they protested Nazism and its incursion into the German churches, Sasse paved his own path by articulating a distinctly confessional Lutheran critique of the German Christian Movement while separating himself from the Confessing Church. While Sasse was vocal in his opposition to the Nazis and helped

433 John T. Pless, “Hermann Sasse (1895-1976),” in Twentieth Century Lutheran Theologians, edited by Mark Mattes (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 157. 148 compose the Bethel Confession of 1933, he rejected the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which he interpreted as violating Lutheran doctrine. In the midst of the Kirchenkampf, Sasse articulated

“confessional ecumenism,” which respected confessional distinctives rather than attempt to construct ecclesiastical unity apart from doctrinal agreement.

In 1932, Sasse opened his direct assault on Nazism. Responding to increasing power of the German Christian Movement, which would soon gain complete control over the Deutsche

Evangelische Kirche (DEK) in 1933, Sasse rejected the notion that Christianity upheld Germans as superior to all other Volker.434 In a 1932 German church yearbook, he declared: “Let it be said that the Evangelical doctrine of …does not admit of the possibility of the Germanic,

Nordic, or any other race being able by nature to fear and love God and do his will, that on the contrary a newborn child of the most noble German descent with the finest racial characteristics of an intellectual and physical sort is just as liable to eternal damnation as a halfbreed born of two decadent races and with serious hereditary defects.”435 This essay set the tone for his opposition to Nazism. He would apply traditional Lutheran doctrine, such as original sin, to Nazi heresies and expose them.

More specifically, Sasse appealed to the Lutheran confessions as a prime source for anti-

Nazi theology. In 1933, he penned an essay, “The Lutheran Confessions and the Volk,” in which he utilized the Confessions to undermine German Christian and Nazi claims of uniqueness for the German Volk. Sasse claimed that it was impossible for German Lutheran theologians to ignore the Confessions, since “history forms a commentary on the Holy Scriptures. And no one

434 Concerning the rise and theology of the German Christian Movement, see Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich; Sussannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus; Richard Steigmann-Gill, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Mary M. Solberg, A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement, 1932-1940 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015). 435 Peter Matheson, ed., The Third Reich and the Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), 2. 149 can entirely free himself from this context, not even a scholar who appears to study the Bible at his desk without presupposition in order to develop a system of Christian doctrine.”436 That said,

Sasse admitted that the confessions were largely silent on matters related to the Volk or the nation. That is because “the confessions are about the Reformation of the church. They do not intend to lay the foundation for a German national church. They desire, rather, to proclaim the pure doctrine of the Gospel, which ought be the same for Christianity among all peoples.”437 In other words, the Book of Concord failed to address the Volk because it proclaimed a catholic gospel that was not bounded by nations. It “rejected the false doctrine that connection to country or Volk is of the essence of the church.”438 Rather, “the essence of the church is defined in purely theological terms by our confessions, and never anthropologically or sociologically. The church proceeds from God and not from men.”439 The Lutheran church is marked by the presence of

Word and Sacrament, and its heart is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. “If the church really does stand and fall together with the article of justification,” Sasse wrote, “then it stands and falls with this article in Rome, in England, in China and Russia, just as much as in Germany and Sweden.”440 Therefore, the Book of Concord’s relative silence concerning the concept of

Volk was actually a testimony against Nazism. Lutheran doctrine was catholic in scope and forbade doctrines of racial superiority. Such denunciations of Nazi doctrine, rooted in the

Lutheran Confessions, quickly raised Sasse’s profile as one of the most vocal anti-Nazi Lutheran theologians.

436 Hermann Sasse, “The Lutheran Confessions and the Volk,” in The Lonely Way, 1:124. 437 Ibid., 126. 438 Ibid., 127. 439 Ibid., 128. 440 Ibid., 130. 150 In August 1933, due to his outspokenness against Nazism, several Lutheran seminary students invited Sasse, along with several other theologians, to compose a new Lutheran confession, rooted in the Bible and the Book of Concord, which would address Nazism within the church. Amongst other theologians who received invitations was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The students requested a document which serve as “a suitable tool for work in the congregations” as well as a “firm standard” against the German Christians.441 Importantly, the students requested a

Lutheran confession, rather than an ecumenical declaration. This request certainly resonated with

Sasse as he began work on the confession.442 Sasse and Bonhoeffer were the primary composers of the first draft. Lutheran theologian John Wilch noted that “Bonhoeffer was able to convince the other participants to accent his treatment of the Jewish question, while Sasse’s contribution is obvious in areas of Scripture, church, and confession.”443 In particular, Sasse desired “that confessional integrity must be protected against unionism.”444

After completing the confession’s first draft, Sasse and Bonhoeffer turned their work over to Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, the president of the Bethel Institutes and one of the confession’s sponsors. Whereas Sasse was most concerned in providing a Lutheran response to the German Christians, Bodelschwingh was more interested in creating a united German

Protestant front, which would include both Lutheran and Reformed Christians. Bodelschwingh sent the document out for review by twenty Lutheran and Reformed theologians, including Karl

Barth. The theologians returned mixed reviews.445 From Sasse and Bonhoeffer’s perspective, the

441 Guy Christopher Carter, “Confession at Bethel, August 1933 – enduring witness: The formation, revision and significance of the first full theological confession of the Evangelical Church struggle in Nazi Germany” (PhD diss, Marquette University, 1987), 65. Carter’s dissertation is the only in depth study of the Bethel Confession. 442 Ibid., 66-67. 443 John R. Wilch, “Hermann Sasse and Third Reich Threats to the Chuch,” in Hermann Sasse: A Man for Our Times?, 80. 444 Ibid., 83. 445 Carter, 93-98; Wilch, 83-85. 151 confession was neutered. According to Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer’s preeminent biographer,

“[Bonhoeffer] felt that the most important parts of the confession had been watered down…. The section on the state included laudatory additions about ‘joyful collaboration’ with the state’s aims. A statement about sharing responsibility for the country’s guilt had been changed to express the church’s part ‘in the glory and guilt of her people.’”446 The outside theologians weakened Bonhoeffer’s condemnation of the state. This was too much for Bonhoeffer, who resigned from the project.

Sasse was disturbed by the changes made to the document, though his principle concerns were different than those of Bonhoeffer. After Bonhoeffer resigned, Sasse continued his work on the Bethel Confession. However, as Bodelschwingh and others continued to neuter the document to make it more appeasing to Reformed and moderate German Christians, Sasse was through.

From Sasse’s perspective, the purpose of the confession had changed. Rather than a confession which would speak for the Lutheran church against Nazism, it became a document meant “to initiate an inner-church dialogue and to speak for possibly all people of the [German] church.”447

As Bethge noted, “Sasse…refused to sign [the Bethel Confession] if [his] name had to appear alongside those of Reformed representatives.”448 Importantly, though Bonhoeffer and Sasse both were disgusted by the end product of the Bethel Confession, they resigned for different reasons.

Bonhoeffer quit because criticisms of the Nazi state were removed. Though Sasse fully agreed with Bonhoeffer’s concerns, he continued to work on the confession until it became clear that it was a document attempting to speak for Lutherans and non-Lutherans and therefore lacking a

446 Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 303. 447 Wilch, 84. 448 Bethge, 303. 152 distinctively Lutheran voice.449 Despite his opposition to Nazism, Sasse refused to sign the confession because it violated his ecumenical sensibilities.

Sasse exhibited similar concerns with the Barmen Declaration. Following the integration of the German Christian Movement into the newly organized Deutsche Evangelische Kirche

(DEK) through the election of Ludwig Müller as Reichsbishof, opposition to the German

Christians and Nazis coalesced through the Pastors’ Emergency League, which was intended to assist anti-Nazi pastors, and movement from a free evangelical synod that would be separate from the Nazi-controlled DEK.450 As this movement continued to organize, a committee was established to draft a confession that would unite the community against the German Christians and the DEK. Bavarian Bishop Hans Meiser called Sasse to serve on the committee at the behest of Erlangen professors Paul Althaus and Werner Elert to add a Lutheran voice to a committee dominated by Reformed theologians, such as Karl Barth.451 Though he was a member of the committee, Sasse does not seem to have played a major role in the composition of the Barmen

Declaration. Indeed, he challenged the very grounds for such a confession. Sasse argued that the basis for the declaration, and for the Confessing Church which developed around it, was the union that resulted in the DEK, which was a “false basis” because it was “an artificial religious coalition standing for no definite doctrine or church confession before world” rather than a church united in common confession.452

Sasse rejected the declaration despite its clear, powerful rejection of Nazism and the

German Christian Movement. In his remarks at the Barmen Synod, Sasse praised the declaration

449 For Sasse’s complaints concerning the removal of critiques of the German state, see Carter, 253-255. 450 Ernst C. Helmreich, “The Nature and Structure of the Confessing Church In Germany Under Hitler,” Journal of Church and State 12, no. 13 (Autumn 1970): 405-407. 451 Wilch, 87. 452 Ibid., 88. 153 as “a necessary word of defense against the German-Christians and their error,” which constituted “a common enemy against which both Reformation confessions [i.e., Lutheran and

Reformed] must fight shoulder to shoulder….”453 However, his opposition focused on the declaration’s attempt to speak on behalf of the teaching offices of the Lutheran, Reformed, and

United churches of Germany. By speaking across the confessional traditions, the Confessing

Church was usurping the responsibility of determining pure doctrine, which belonged to the individual churches.454 The result was a confession which, in Sasse’s judgment, was not a confession since it lacked church consensus, was intentionally vague in describing differences between Reformed and Lutheran confessions, and intentionally misuses biblical references “in order to force a compromise artificially.”455

Sasse continued his critique of the Barmen Declaration in “Union and Confession,” an article concerning unionism published in 1936. In his eyes, the Confessing Church’s central weakness was its inability to confess. Sasse wrote that “the ‘Confessing Church’ cannot say what it confesses. It can as little tell the world or Christianity what it believes and wherein its faith differs from the faith of other communions…. Regarding the question, the question of the confession of the ‘Confessing Church,’ we are answered by a chorus, no, a chaos of contradictory voices.”456 The result of the chaos was “Scriptureless Enthusiasm” which lacked any theological grounding and therefore opened itself to any conceivable heresy.457 Calling forth images of the Radical Reformation (which Luther denounced as “enthusiasm”), Sasse argued

453 Ibid., 88-89. 454 Ibid., 88. 455 Ibid., 89. 456 Hermann Sasse, “Union and Confession,” in The Lonely Way, 286. 457 Ibid., 292. 154 that such enthusiasm, regardless of the veneer of holiness, was always the devil’s attempt to infiltrate the church:

Just as Satan loves to invade the church, posing as an “angel of light” according to St. Paul, so also the magnificent, church-destroying lie clothes itself ever and again in the deceptive mask of a renewal, an improvement, a reformation of the church. Therefore, as a rule such lies, since time immemorial, have entered the church in an hour of deepest emotion and holiest enthusiasm, and where possible, with the singing of Veni, Creator Spiritus and the .458

In other words, even in the midst of a heroic repudiation of Nazism and German Christians,

Sasse saw Satan was at work attempting to weaken the purity of truth found in the Lutheran church.

The Bethel Confession and Barman Declarations delineate the nature of Sasse’s confessional ecumenism. Sasse was not automatically opposed to statements opposing Nazism which were composed by theologians across traditions. Indeed, he worked diligently on the

Bethel Confession, and he supported the anti-Nazi critique of the Barmen Declaration. He viewed such a theological witness as necessary and correct. However, difficulties arose when the confessions attempted to ignore confessional differences or speak on the behalf of the churches.

For Sasse, doctrinal purity was fundamental, and the Lutheran Confessions could be not diminished, since he believed that they correctly reflected biblical teaching. Therefore, regardless of the courageousness of Barmen’s anti-Nazi witness, the declaration endangered the church by drawing it away from gospel purity. Instead, ecumenical declarations ought to acknowledge confessional distinctions and not diminish them. From Sasse’s perspective, confessional ecumenism accomplished that. However, improper ecumenism ignored differences and compromised doctrines. For Sasse, that was a step too far. Therefore, despite his vociferous opposition to Nazism, he felt obliged to walk away from the Bethel Confession, condemn the

458 Ibid., 271. 155 Barmen Declaration, and quarantine himself from the Confessing Church. Sasse’s confessionalism dictated an alternative path in the midst of World War II.

Amillennial Comfort: Sasse’s Briefe and Lutheran Eschatology

In 1949, Sasse was miserable. If Sasse was isolated in Nazi Germany, he found himself further isolated as Germans picked up the pieces of their country’s utter destruction. Perhaps overly cooperative with American de-Nazification policies, Sasse was estranged from his fellow faculty members at Erlangen, concerning whom he provided a detailed report of their activities during the war to the Americans.459 Furthermore, German Protestantism continued its push towards unity that had begun during the Nazi period. In 1948, despite Sasse’s vociferous protests, the Lutheran territorial and Reformed churches united to form the Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche im Deutschland). Sasse believed that Lutherans who joined the union church invalidated Lutheranism, since, as he later wrote, “according to its very nature, the Lutheran Church, the Church of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, is a confessional church in the strict sense and can only exist as such.”460 As a result, in 1948, Sasse resigned from the Church of Bavaria, which had joined the EKD, and joined a free Lutheran Church.

In 1949, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia called him to serve as a lecturer at Immanuel Seminary in Adelaide, South Australia. Immanuel provided Sasse with a perch – if not an altogether comfortable one – by which he could observe world Lutheranism from afar and opine on developments. In the midst of his loneliness and isolation, Sasse retained influence within confessional Lutheran circles by composing a series of sixty-two letters (Briefe)

459 See Lowell C. Green, “Hermann Sasse’s Relations with His Erlangen Colleagues,” in Stephenson and Winger, 37-64; Tom G. A. Hardt, “Hermann Sasse in His Letters,” Logia IV (Reformation 1995): 7; and Pless, 32. 460 Sasse, Letters, 1:167. 156 which were distributed globally to Lutheran pastors. Written in German, the circular letters were translated and published in English-speaking Lutheran publications or were privately mimeographed. Sasse’s letters were narrative, analytical, and exhortatory. Though the letters’ subjects varied, they were united in their verdict that global Lutheranism was in deep, unparalleled crisis because Lutherans disregarded their confessions through their ecumenical pursuits. Drawing upon historical anecdotes, biblical exegesis, liturgical studies, and Lutheran eschatology, Sasse depicted a dire situation which was tempered only by his articulation of an inaugurated eschatology which provided hope in the midst of dismal despair.

Sasse’s letters illuminate the active role of amillennial eschatology within confessional

Lutheran constructions of reality. Within scholarship of conservative Christianity, amillennialism largely is ignored in favor of premillennialism, which, since the mid-nineteenth century, has reigned as the predominant eschatology within American evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

Indeed, historian Matthew Avery Sutton went so far as to define fundamentalism as “radical apocalyptic evangelicalism,” with “apocalyptic” referring to the dispensational premillennialism favored by many American fundamentalists.461 Though fundamentalism is an American phenomenon, and, as this chapter discussed earlier, Sasse had a complicated relationship with

American fundamentalism and was influential on a global scale (e.g., North America, Europe, and Australia), Sasse and his letters provide evidence for the interpretative power of alternative

461 Sutton, 3. In his emphasis on dispensational premillennialism, Sutton follows the thrust of the scholarship that preceded him. Ernest R. Sandeen argued that “it is millenarianism which gave life and shape to the Fundamentalism movement” (Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970], xv), and then he proceeded to chart the rise of premillennialism within American Protestantism. Marsden and Paul Boyer continued Sandeen’s trust (see Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, and Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture [Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992]). Few studies have explored non- premillennial within conservative Christianity. The major exceptions would be D. G. Hart and Michael J. McVicar (see Hart, Defending the Faith, and Michael J. McVicar, Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism [Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015]). McVicar profiles Rushdoony, who advocated postmillennialism while denouncing premillennialism. 157 eschatologies rooted in confessional Protestantism. In his letters, Sasse diagnosed Lutheranism as falling into apostasy. The growing influence of liberalism, ecumenism, Reformed theology, and Catholicism confirmed this for him. However, despite the seeming hopelessness for confessional Lutherans like Sasse, the German expat took courage in the victory of Christ that had been inaugurated on Sunday, had been made present in the end times through the means of grace (the Word and Sacraments), but had not yet been fully consummated.

Amillennialism and the associated concept of an inaugurated eschatology gave Sasse hope.

Amillennialism, unlike postmillennialism or premillennialism, does not teach that there will be a literal millennium at the end of times near Christ’s second coming. The end times began following Christ’s resurrection and, therefore, consist of all of Christian history. Since the end times was not limited to an increase of evil pointing towards the imminent return of Christ, evil was expected to be present consistently through church history as Satan continued to attack the church. Evil confirmed the presence of the end times. Therefore, amillennialism bred a theology of crisis just as much as premillennialism. While premillennialists sought for signs that pointed to Christ’s return, Lutheran amillennialists like Sasse did not need to search. They simply pointed to church history and a continuum of evil from Nero to Schleiermacher and beyond in which Satan assaulted God’s church either through physical violence or theological heresy.

While amillennialists are hardly as dramatic as premillennialists in their predictions or charting of the end times, they nevertheless share the common conviction that the church was under dreadful attack and therefore trafficked in the rhetoric of doom and fear.

While amillennialism breeds pessimism, it balances gloom with hope. This is particularly the case within conservative Lutheranism, which promotes an “inaugurated eschatology.” In other words, as the end times began with Christ’s resurrection, elements of God’s rule have

158 already begun. Until Christ’s return, God’s kingdom continually is made present in the world in a manner that reminds Christians that the end times are simultaneously “already” and “not yet,” as God has defeated Satan and Christians have eternal life (“already”), but Satan continues to attack the church and therefore God’s victory over him has not yet been fully culminated (“not yet”).462 Within Lutheranism, the concept of “inaugurated eschatology” is evident particularly within liturgical theology. One Missouri Synod theologian terms the Divine Service “heaven on earth” and identified it as an explicit example of inaugurated eschatology, since “wherever Christ is, there are the last things, the eschaton, so eschatology is about the Gospel and Sacraments as the means for Christ’s presence. The liturgy is an eschatological moment because the end times are brought forward and made present by Christ’s presence in His gifts of mercy and forgiveness.

In the liturgy those end times are upon us now, even as we wait for Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead.”463 In the Divine Service and through Word and Sacraments, according to

Lutheranism, time is transcended and Christians enter into God’s presence as he serves his people with forgiveness. Therefore, setting dates for end time events or deciphering modern identities in ancient texts is irrelevant, because “if salvation is here because Jesus Christ is present in our worship forgiving sins, then the Lord may return today, tomorrow, or in fifty years. The time does not matter because we have now the blessings of the not yet.”464 In the midst of sorrow and grief, hope is present because the eschaton has been inaugurated in the sacraments, through which God’s victory over Satan is communicated. Conservative Lutheran eschatology thus maintains a dialectic of disaster and victory, both of which are simultaneously

462 For more concerning inaugurated eschatology, see Benjamin L. Gladd and Matthew S. Harmon, Making All Things New: Inaugurated Eschatology for the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), and George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993). 463 Just, 19-20. 464 Ibid., 19 (emphasis in the original). 159 omnipresent in Christian history. Sasse effectively communicated this eschatology to fellow pastors through his circular letters as he analyzed current events and trends in postwar

Lutheranism.

Setting the tone, in 1948 Sasse began his letters by lamenting the current state of

European Lutheranism. In the midst of the movement for Protestant church union in Germany,

Sasse commented that “the need of the Lutheran Church becomes apparent in that she is denied the right to exist as a church and that she has put up with it more or less.”465 In other words, “the

Reformed churches of various shades of confession…are willing to tolerate Lutheranism as an imperfect semi-Catholic form of Evangelical Christianity, even as they also put up with

Anglicanism.”466 Lutheranism, from Sasse’s perspective, entered into church union discussions and mergers at a disadvantage because such actions occurred on Reformed terms, thus denying

Lutheran ecclesiology in the process. According to Sasse, Lutheranism was inherently confessional – to the extent that to deny the Lutheran Confessions was to deny Lutheranism itself. Denial of the Confessions also entailed compromise. Sasse was horrified that the

Evangelical Church in Germany placed the Book of Concord on the same footing as Reformed confessions of faith. Writing to his fellow pastors, Sasse argued that “since the Reformed and

United confessions in the respective constituent churches within the EKiD are regarded as having equal rights, the Lutheran Confessions are actually being robbed of that binding doctrinal force whereby the unity of the Church is safeguarded. With that, Lutheranism ceases to be a church.” Instead, Lutheranism was relegated to the status of a “theological school.”467

465 Sasse, Letters, 1:7 (emphasis in the original). 466 Ibid., 1:7. 467 Ibid., 1:9. 160 Reminiscent of his hesitancy concerning both the Bethel and Barmen Declarations, Sasse denounced the EKiD as an assault on true church unity as it deprived the Lutheran Confessions of their unifying power. For Sasse, the purpose of confessions was to unify the church in true doctrine. Therefore, any attempt at confessional relativism, regardless of its intent, was counterproductive if not outright hostile to church unity, or true ecumenism. Sasse urged his fellow Lutherans, “We are, like Luther, to search for the one truth of the Gospel for the one

Church. Let us again become confessional Lutherans for the sake of the unity of the Church.”468

In his second letter, written in late 1948, Sasse provided the most succinct discussion of his theology of confession. Sasse argued that “every confession of the Church is first and last an answer, not to some human inquiry, but to the question of the Lord, who asks, ‘Who am I?’”469

In other words, a confession is a reaction to divine revelation, and it necessarily entails a question of truth. Therefore, confessions ecclesiologically serve “a double purpose: to gather and to separate.”470 A church’s confession defines the church, as “the Church congregates around the confession.”471 Lest he be accused of detracting from the Lutheran doctrine articulated in the

Augsburg Confession that the church is an assembly of individuals gathered around the means of grace, Sasse notes that “of course the Church gathers around Scripture, but around a Scripture that is rightly understood. For all churches gather around Scripture as such, even all heresies. But by answering the Gospel questions as to the person of Jesus, the Confession sets forth the true understanding of Scripture in contrast to the heretic’s understanding of the same Scripture.”472

468 Ibid., 1:15 (emphasis in the original). 469 Ibid., 1:25. 470 Ibid., 1:26 (emphasis in the original). 471 Ibid., 1:26. 472 Ibid., 1:26. 161 Confessions, therefore, are essential to church unity because they unify believers in a common belief that rejects false teaching. Gathering and separating are both unifying.

Unfortunately for Sasse, Lutheranism seemingly rejected his confessional ecumenism by rejecting the “separating” nature of confessions. In Sasse’s analysis, theologians of the EKiD and similar Lutheran churches approached Reformed heterodoxy lackadaisically. He asked rhetorically, “What would have become of the Church if she had not taken up arms against the heresies of the second, fourth, and sixteenth centuries, but had hoped, as present-day are doing, that the truth would carry the day of itself?”473 Rather than defending the faith, church leaders are in danger of “forfeit[ing] the great heritage of our fathers for this mess of pottage, the views that modern man may happen to have about Confession, concerning which he himself does not know how it will look a year or even a week from now.”474 As Lutherans rejected the

Confessions, they also rejected scripture, as “the authority of the confessions is…nothing else than the authority of the scriptural content which is set forth in them.”475 Truth is no longer obtainable. Rather, the unification achieved by church mergers and Lutheran theological surrender to ecumenism is “not unification in faith, but rather unification in doubt, namely, the famous ‘agree[ment] to disagree.’”476 Sasse summarizes his fears concerning the end goal of ecumenism, a “reunified church,” by asking, “Is it really too much to state that that “Reunited

Church” would be the end of the Church of Christ? For without these truths of the Holy

Scriptures the church cannot live.”477 Lutheran ecumenical entreaties thus are suicidal, as they

473 Ibid., 1:14. 474 Ibid., 1:33. 475 Ibid., 2:46. 476 Ibid., 2:55. 477 Ibid., 2:58. Sasse also challenged the notion that the Christian Church can be “reunited,” because “such a church has never existed…. It is the fantasy dreamed up by churchmen who can think neither historically nor theologically” (Ibid., 2:58). Elsewhere, Sasse wrote that “‘The old undivided church’ never existed, if one understands by this a unified Christianity. It seems that what we would call the rightly believing church was always a minority” (Ibid., 2:298). 162 cut the church off from the sources of its life – the Scriptures and Confessions – as well as the very notion of truth.

Sasse painted a tale of gloom for the Lutheran Church, and he was under no illusions about the near-term possibilities of reversing the present course. Reminiscent of an Old

Testament prophet, Sasse called Lutherans to repentance. By repenting, Lutherans would return to their confessional roots, since “the Lutheran Church…is a church of repentance.”478 Luther called upon the sixteenth century Catholic Church to repent, and, as a reformation movement,

Lutheranism constantly calls Christianity, and itself, to repentance. Sasse argued that this aspect of Lutheran identity was particularly relevant for postwar Lutheranism, as he saw God’s judgment clearly upon Lutheran churches: “The millions of Lutherans driven from their native lands bear witness to this. The glorious churches, which lie in rubble and ashes, bear witness to this.”479 God wreaked havoc upon global Lutheranism because Lutheranism forgot him, a condemnation Sasse leveled by quoting the prophet Jeremiah proclaiming “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the

Lord….”480 By placing faith in human reason and state governments, Lutheranism brought its dissolution upon itself.481 In order to solve their problems, Lutherans must be self-reflective, asking, “How could it ever come to this in the Lutheran Church?”482 “We all, the entire Lutheran

Church, must repent. To this day every renewal of the Church has been born out of repentance, not out of accusation raised against others, but out of the genuine , mea maxima culpa…. It is also well to consider that in the language of the New Testament the same

478 Ibid., 2:72. 479 Ibid., 2:72. 480 Ibid., 2:403; Jeremiah 17:5. 481 Ibid., 2:308-311, 369-383. 482 Ibid., 2:499. 163 word…signifies the confession of faith and the confession of guilt.”483 Confessional

Lutheranism’s wounds were self-inflicted, and Sasse’s role as pastor, theologian, and prophet was to diagnose the illness of apostasy and prescribe the remedy of repentance by returning to biblical truth confessed in the Book of Concord. Whether or not Lutherans would heed the call of the lonely German-Australian was, depressingly to him, beyond his control.

Despite the seeming futility of his efforts, Sasse still found hope in the inaugurated eschatology and sacramental theology intrinsically tied in Lutheran amillennialism. In the final years of his life, as he toiled away in Australia, Sasse was intensely lonely. However, Sasse portrayed himself in his letters as nonplussed by his situation because of the comfort he found in the Word and Sacraments. In 1948, Sasse wrote in his first circular letter,

When will the terrible superstition of Christendom of our day cease that Jesus Christ is powerful only there where two or three million are gathered together in His name? When will we again comprehend that the Church lives by the means of grace of the pure preaching of the Gospel and by the divinely instituted administration of the Sacraments and by nothing else? And for no other reason than because Jesus Christ the Lord is present in His means of grace and builds His Church on earth, being even as powerful as ever before in the history of the Church – even if His power and glory, to speak as our Confessions do, are cruce tectum, hidden under the cross.484

Referencing Martin Luther’s theologia crucis, which argues that God is most powerful in his weakness (e.g., Jesus on the cross), Sasse comforted himself and his compatriots by arguing that strength is found in the means of grace, wherein Christ’s power lies, rather than in numerical strength. The means of grace provided victory for Sasse, and he constantly returned to them through his letters, explicating their importance to confessionalism Lutheranism.

While he often discussed the sacraments in terms of differentiating Lutheran doctrines from Reformed or Catholic positions, he often articulated his sacramental theology in terms of

483 Ibid., 2:499. 484 Ibid., 1:16. 164 inaugurated eschatology. In 1956, arguing against theologians who viewed baptism and the

Lord’s Supper as biblical “types,” Sasse wrote that “they do indeed point to the future, but it is a future already present with its gifts of grace.”485 Later in that same letter, he claimed that “the

Lord Christ is present in all the means of grace. He comes to us in the preaching of the Gospel, in

Baptism, and in absolution. In these He is present in His church, which is His body.”486 When viewed through the lens of amillennialism, Sasse’s sacramental theology appears richly eschatological. By saying that “the Lord Christ is present in all the means of grace,” he is not just making a dogmatic point concerning the . Rather, Sasse argued that Christ is present in the world and in the church – through the means of grace – in a manner which foreshadows his second coming. However, Christ’s presence in the means of grace comprises a portion of the eschaton that was inaugurated after Jesus was resurrected.

While Sasse did not pull out a Millerite chart or attempt to decipher whether or not

Mikhail Gorbachev’s birthmark is the Mark of the Beast, Sasse’s emphasis on the sacraments is equally as eschatological as anything Hal Lindsey wrote because confessional Lutheran sacramental and liturgical theologies are inherently eschatological. Sasse’s apocalypticism was blatant. On Christmas 1952, Sasse composed a letter denouncing altar fellowship with churches lacking a common confession of faith. Railing against those arguing that church union was necessary in light of “the apocalyptic events of our century” (e.g., World War II), he inquired,

“But is the time of the church not always the end times? Was not the end of all things near when the Lord died on the cross? Did not God’s new world break forth on Easter morning? Was not the Reformation an eschatological event, and not only because Luther and his followers thought

485 Ibid., 2:457. 486 Ibid., 2:465. 165 they lived in the end times?”487 In other words, every moment in church history was encompassed within the end times and therefore was inherently eschatological. World War II neither added nor subtracted from that situation. Therefore, Sasse’s pessimistic analysis of

Lutheranism (and global Christianity in general) fit within an amillennial schema, as did his never ceasing optimism. In 1952, after lamenting a convention of the Lutheran World

Federation, Sasse wrote: “If we did not know in whose hands the fate of the Lutheran Church lies, and that these hands are exactly as powerful now as in the time of the Reformation, then we could well doubt the future of our church.”488 Lest the reader miss the subtle optimism lingering amongst the woe, Sasse immediately follows by exclaiming, “Ne desperemus. Let us not despair!”489 Since the church is in God’s hands and the church is defined by the presence of the

Word and Sacraments – the means of grace – the church will neither disappear nor be completely defeated by Satan. Therefore, as he wrote in 1956, “A true confessional church is a church which in the midst of the distresses of the world and in the midst of its own distress does not cease to sing: Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur (‘We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge

Thee to be the Lord).”490 In the midst of perpetual crisis, the church rejoiced in victory.

A Useful Lutheran: Sasse and Matthew Harrison

On August 9, 1976, after nearly three decades in Australia, Sasse died as a result of a fire in his home. Though he died in poverty and exile, he was not forgotten. In the quarter century following his death, translations of his essays appeared in occasional anthologies or seminary

487 Ibid., 2:202. 488 Ibid., 2:180. 489 Ibid., 2:180. 490 Ibid., 2:501. 166 periodicals.491 Sasse’s presence, though not prominent, remained, hovering in the background as confessional Lutherans within the Missouri Synod reconstructed their identity in the aftermath of the Seminex schism.492 Many Lutheran pastors explored and implemented the “church growth” methodologies developed by Donald McGavran, an evangelical missiologist at Fuller

Theological Seminary.493 However, others looked for sources within their own tradition to reinvigorate the Missouri Synod, including a young Iowan pastor named Matthew Harrison.

Introduced to Sasse at the synod’s Fort Wayne seminary, Harrison, from his rural parish in

Westgate, Iowa, collected, translated, and published a number of Sasse’s essays in various

Lutheran forums. Harrison continued this work as he was called to Zion Lutheran Church, a large urban parish in Fort Wayne, and, finally, when he was elected as the synod’s president in

2010. Sasse posthumously found himself in the center of the tradition’s St. Louis citadel as his foremost advocate took Walther’s gavel as the president of the Missouri Synod.

Due largely to Harrison’s promotion of his work, Sasse experienced a renaissance of interest amongst confessional Lutheran pastors in the 1990s and early 2000s. As of 2016,

Concordia Publishing House has published six volumes of Sasse’s letters and articles, totaling over two thousand pages of material. These books, edited by Harrison, are heavily annotated, contextualizing various arguments made by Sasse as well as identifying individuals referenced in the books. Throughout these works, Harrison argues that Sasse is relevant as a guide for the

Missouri Synod as it navigates the swift waters between the Scylla and Charybdis of

491 For example, see Jeffrey J. Kloha, “Hermann Sasse Confesses the Doctrine de Scriptura Sacra,” in Scripture and the Church: Selected Essays of Hermann Sasse, Concordia Seminary Monograph Series no. 2, edited by Jeffrey J. Kloha and Ronald R. Feuerhahn (St. Louis: Concordia Seminary Press, 1995), 337-423. 492 See Burkee. 493 Gary Lynn McIntosh, “The Impact of Donald A. McGavran’s Church Growth on Selected Denominations in the United States of America, 1970-2000” (PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2005), 137- 154. 167 evangelicalism and liberalism while defining its identity in twenty-first century American

Christianity.

For Harrison and likeminded confessional Lutherans, the life and writings of Sasse provide a useful past as he constructs the denominational identity of the Missouri Synod.

Plagued by several decades of division between traditionalists and evangelicals, Harrison places

Sasse squarely on the side of the traditionalists as he seeks to maintain distance from evangelical

Christianity. To that end, Harrison adds to the Lutheran canon of writings by which confessional

Lutherans judge current theological trends as well as the state of their tradition, and he extends it far into the twentieth century. In her analysis of American evangelical print culture, Candy

Gunther Brown argues that “in their efforts to transform the world of print, nineteenth-century evangelicals forged an informal, open-ended ‘canon’ of texts that embedded core values and assumptions about the relationships connecting writers, publishers, texts, and readers.”494 Brown describes a print culture that was simultaneously interdenominational and denominational insofar as the canon was not constrained by denominational boundaries though it often was produced by denominational presses and exhibited rivalries between the churches. Moreover, the canon was fluid, as “new publications gained entrance…if they shared certain marks of membership, in other words, if they reinforced the same values as texts previously recognized as canonical.”495

Much like a nineteenth century evangelical printer, Harrison expands the canon by noting

Sasse’s position in relation to Walther and Luther and his relevance to modern confessional

Lutheranism. By highlighting Sasse’s emphasis on traditional Lutheran teachings (such as the centrality of Word and Sacrament) as well as his strident opposition to ecumenism with either

494 Candy Gunther Brown, The Word in the World: Evangelical Writing, Publishing, and Reading in America (1789- 1880) (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 7. 495 Ibid., 7. 168 theological conservatives or liberals, Harrison demonstrates Sasse’s worth as both an addition to the confessional Lutheran literary canon and as a positive and negative guide for the Missouri

Synod’s future.

Harrison accomplishes this primarily through the apparatuses of his volumes. His editorial footnotes are not simply contextual or historical. Rather, they are argumentative and normative. As noted earlier, Sasse occasionally disagreed with American confessional Lutheran orthodoxy on matters such as and the utility of . Using his position as editor of Sasse’s Letters to Lutheran Pastors, Harrison corrected Sasse through the apparatus, demonstrating where and how Sasse was wrong. Nevertheless, Harrison quickly redeems his subject, showing through appendices how Sasse repented of his more liberal views of and later largely agreed with the more conservative standpoint espoused by

American confessional Lutherans, such as Harrison, thereby validating Harrison’s authority.

Harrison’s editing of Sasse’s works provides an example of the use of print culture as a means by which a particular identity can be created for or asserted upon a denomination. In this instance, through his unique editing of Sasse’s work, which involves the inclusion of approximately thirty pages of testimonials of Sasse’s greatness (from living and dead confessional Lutheran leaders) and a running commentary of correction through footnotes and appendices on Sasse’s perceived errors on scriptural inerrancy and other issues, Harrison bolsters his vision of confessional Lutheran identity in a synod that is starkly divided between

“conservative” and “moderate” Lutherans. Sasse thus becomes a symbol by which Harrison, a staunch confessional conservative, can remake Missouri Synod Lutheranism while arguing against his opponents.

169 Let Us Pray?: Harrison’s Rise to Power

On September 10, 2010, Matthew Harrison became the president of a much divided synod. Winning 54% of the vote at the Missouri Synod’s convention in Houston, Texas,

Harrison defeated incumbent Gerald B. Kieschneck, who was running for his fourth term.496

Kieschneck was perceived as a moderate within the Missouri Synod, and his nine years at the helm had included multiple controversies that irritated conservatives. A divisive president, he had never won more than 53% of the vote in any of his election bids. However, he had continually defeated the conservatives, who were often split amongst a variety of candidates. In

2010, though, the conservatives united behind Harrison, who defeated Kieschneck on the first ballot. By electing Harrison, the synod chose a stark confessionalist who, due to his idolization of the Missouri Fathers and Sasse, emphasized Lutheran distinctives rather than moving the denomination in an evangelical direction.

Matthew Harrison was born on March 14, 1962, in Sioux City, Iowa. After attending

Morningside College, a local Methodist liberal arts college, and then serving as a missionary to the Cree tribe in , Harrison matriculated to Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort

Wayne, Indiana.497 Often considered the more conservative of the Missouri Synod’s two seminaries, Fort Wayne deeply shaped young Harrison’s impression of Lutheranism. In particular, he was introduced to Hermann Sasse by Kurt Marquart, one of the conservative stalwarts at the seminary and a former student of Sasse.498 Under Marquart’s guidance, Harrison

496 “Missouri Synod Election Signals Shift Towards Denominational Distinctives,” , July 10, 2010, http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2010/july/missouri-synod-election-signals-shift-toward.html. 497 “Sioux City Native new LCMS president,” Sioux City Journal, http://siouxcityjournal.com/lifestyles/faith-and- values/article_226667aa-450c-50e9-864f-d8986b5ee4ec.html, 17 July 2010. 498 Hermann Sasse, The Lonely Way, 1:9. Kurt Marquart is an underappreciated figure in late twentieth century Lutheranism and was a guiding force in the Missouri Synod in the aftermath of the Seminex controversy. Born in Estonia, Marquart found himself in Displaced Persons camps in Germany following World War II before immigrating to New York. Following education in Missouri Synod institutions, Marquart served as a pastor in Australia for fourteen years before being called to serve as a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary. While at 170 devoured Sasse’s works, going so far as to become an exchange student at Sasse’s former seminary in Australia. While there, he perused their archives, studying essays and review articles written by Sasse which were unavailable in the United States. After he completed his M.Div. degree in 1989, Harrison remained in Indiana to earn a Master’s of Sacred Theology in 1991, which he completed by composing a thesis that contextualized Sasse’s doctrine of scripture.499

Following seminary, Harrison was called to serve as the pastor at St. Peter’s Lutheran

Church in Westgate, Iowa. Located in Iowa’s rural northeastern corner, Harrison quickly found himself in a challenging situation. While the details are not known, the circumstances at his parish placed a substantial amount of stress on the young pastor. Harrison found comfort in

Sasse. Speaking retrospectively in a 2013 radio interview, he noted that Sasse taught him patience. Rather than act “very tersely and absolutely, what Sasse helped me do is to see there is a long, long history of the church. Sasse gave me the confidence as a Lutheran, solidly Lutheran, to work with the rough edges and know where I’m going and to maintain the fundamental conviction but necessarily to know that the church has a long history that we must always consider.”500 While in Westgate, Harrison turned to Sasse “in order to bridge the gap between zealous orthodoxy and wise pastoral practice” and began a practice of translating several pages of Sasse’s German writings per day, a practice he maintained for many years throughout his tenure at St. Peter’s and later at Zion Lutheran Church in urban Fort Wayne.501

Much as Sasse’s career was defined by his opposition to unionism, Harrison came to the

Fort Wayne, Marquart contributed to the renaissance of interest in the Lutheran confessions and traditional liturgy that left a profound mark on the Missouri Synod in the years following Seminex. See “In Memoriam: Kurt E. Marquart (1934-2006),” Concordia Theological Quarterly 70, no. 3/4 (July/October 2006): 194-196. 499 Matthew C. Harrison, “The quest for a Christocentric doctrina de scriptura sacra: a brief introduction to the person, works, and theology of Hermann Sasse, the formative years: 1913—1933,” Master’s thesis, Concordia Theological Seminary, 1991. 500 Matthew C. Harrison, interview by Todd Wilken, Issues, Etc., KFUO 850 AM, October 23, 2013. 501 Sasse, The Lonely Way, 1:9. 171 forefront of the Missouri Synod due to controversies surrounding the synod’s relationships with other churches and traditions. Indeed, the Missouri Synod seemed to be obsessed with ecumenism throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, and it lurched from controversy to controversy. The blame fell at the feet of the synodical president, Gerald Kieschnick.

Following the death of conservative president Alvin Barry, Kieschnick, who was associated with evangelical-friendly LCMS parachurch ministries, was elected to be the synod’s twelfth president by only eighteen votes. Kieschnick was installed on September 8, 2001, three days before the terrorist attacks in , Virginia, and rural Pennsylvania. The tragedy would define his presidency, though not as one might expect.

On September 23, a massive interfaith service was held in Yankee Stadium.

Participants represented a wide breadth of religions, including Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Catholics – and Missouri Synod Lutherans. In front of the assembled mourners, LCMS Atlantic District

President David Benke offered a prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, and his actions set off a firestorm in the Missouri Synod. Benke’s presence at the interfaith service smacked of unionism to many confessionalists, who had recently opposed Kieschnick’s bid for the presidency. To make matters worse, Kieschnick had approved Benke’s presence at Yankee Stadium.502

Therefore, when twenty-one LCMS pastors leveled official charges of unionism against Benke, observers interpreted it as a proxy battle against Kieschnick.503 Though Kieschnick defended

Benke’s participation in the interfaith service as consistent with synodical policy concerning involvement at civic events, confessionalists decried Benke’s prayer, complaining that “instead

502 Mary Todd, “The Curious Case of the Missouri Synod,” 41. 503 Todd Hertz, “Benke Suspended for 'Syncretism' after 9/11 Event: Interfaith prayer exposes divisions in LCMS,” Christianity Today, 1 July 2002, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/julyweb-only/7-29-31.0.html. Originally, charges were also filed against Kieschnick, but they were dropped when a board ruled that charges against the president could only be decided at a convention, which would take place in three years. See “LCMS president accused of unionism,” Metro Lutheran, 30 November 2001. http://metrolutheran.org/2001/11/lcms-president- accused-of-unionism. 172 of keeping God’s name sacred and holy, it was made common and dragged to the level of

Allah.”504 While Kieschnick wished charity to prevail, Benke was found guilty and suspended from ministry. Wayne Schulz, second vice president of the synod and one of Benke’s judges, declared that “to participate with pagans in an interfaith service and, additionally, to give the impression that there may be more than one God, is an extremely serious offense.”505 Benke won an appeal in 2003, and his suspension was lifted, as the appeals panel found his actions in concert with synodical policy concerning a “once in a lifetime” event.506 However, the controversy did not abate. Confessionalists were furious, since Benke escaped censure for unionism with Kieschnick’s support.

Though Kieschnick was reelected in 2004 and 2007, his majorities were slim, and he consistently found ways to irritate the confessionalists in between election years. In 2008, ostensibly due to budgetary problems, KFUO-AM, the synod’s St. Louis radio station, cancelled

“Issues, Etc.,” a daily interview-based radio show that interpreted American, Christian, and

Lutheran current events. The show provided a frequent platform for confessionalists, such as

Matthew Harrison, and was perceived as critical of Kieschnick. Though the synod pled financial reasons for the show’s demise, the claim was unverifiable, as KFUO’s financial information was not public. Confessionalists interpreted the cancellation of “Issues, Etc.” as a direct assault on their camp. Approximately fifty protestors stood outside the synodical headquarters carrying stands proclaiming “Here I Stand” or “Why So Silent?”, and an online petition soon gathered

504 Daniel J. Wakin, “Preparing to Take On His Church,” New York Times, July 10, 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/07/10/nyregion/preparing-to-take-on-his-church.html. 505 “Minister in Interfaith Service is Suspended,” New York Times, July 9, 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/07/09/.../minister-in-interfaith-service-is-suspended.html. 506 Todd Hertz, “Yankee Stadium Strike Out: Latest Benke ruling reveals deep fissures among Missouri Synod Lutherans,” Christianity Today, July 1, 2003, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/july/15.23.html. 173 over 7,000 signatures.507 To add insult to injury, the cancellation occurred during .

Mollie Hemingway, a conservative columnist and former member of the synod’s Board of

Communication Services, dismissed the synod’s excuses, writing that “the program was in all likelihood a pawn in a larger battle for the soul of the Missouri Synod.” She laid that blame at

Kieschnick’s feet, who “pushed church marketing over the Lutherans' historic confession of faith by repeatedly telling the laity, ‘This is not your grandfather's church.’” Additionally, Hemingway compared the current crisis in the synod to the Seminex controversy, in which “alert confessional laity thwarted a top-down imposition of chic liberal theology in the church's seminaries.”508

Courtesy of generous listeners, “Issues, Etc.” quickly returned to the airwaves on another St.

Louis station and online via “Pirate Christian Radio” (which delightfully described itself as an independent, internet-based Christian radio station “free from the scurvy plagues of pop- psychology, goofy fads, self-help, pietism, purpose-drivenism, the prosperity heresy, contemplative mysticism, seeker-sensitivism, liberalism, relevantism, Emergent nonsense, and the sissy-girly Oprah-fied religiosity that is being passed off in our churches as ‘Biblical

Christianity’”).509 Kieschnick once again had agitated confessionalists, and they responded by uniting around Matthew Harrison as their candidate for president at the 2010 synodical convention in Houston, Texas.

In the midst of his Iowan pastorate, his later efforts shepherding an urban neighborhood renewal project in Fort Wayne, and leading the synod’s disaster relief ministry, Harrison became a recognized leader amongst the confessionalists. Through frequent appearances on “Issues,

507 “‘Issues, Etc.’ cancellation draws response,” Reporter Online, June 5, 2008, https://blogs.lcms.org/2008/issues- etc-cancellation-draws-responses. 508 Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, “Radio Silence,” Wall Street Journal. 28 March 2008. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120667366412170875. 509 “About Our Ship,” Pirate Christian Radio, http://www.piratechristian.com/about-our-ship/. 174 Etc.,” various speaking engagements at confessionalist conferences such as the Congress on the

Lutheran Confessions, and his literary output, Harrison quickly became the candidate that confessionalists rallied to in their attempts to unseat Kieschnick. Early signs seemed to be in their favor. When congregations offered nominations for the Missouri Synod’s presidency,

Gerald Kieschnick received only 755 out of 6,170 nominations, marking the lowest number of nominations ever received by a sitting president. Harrison, on the other hand, received 1,332 nominations.510 In this midst of the theological controversies, the convention would also decide upon a synodical restructuring that Kieschnick proposed to increase the hierarchy’s efficiency by decreasing the number of boards and increasing term lengths from three years to four. Where

Kieschnick saw increased efficiency, his confessionalist opponents smelled a power grab.511 The confessionalists came prepared for the convention. Paralleling how the Tea Party movement shook the Republican Party contemporaneously in 2010, confessionalists organized against

Kieschnick through Facebook pages and various independent forums.512 Websites extolled

Harrison’s pastoral successes in rural and urban ministries as well as his virtues as a historian and theologian, frequently mentioning his efforts in translating Hermann Sasse’s works. Indeed, some of his followers were handing out “Vote Theologian 2010” campaign buttons, adding to

510 Tim Townsend, “As Lutheran convention begins, president makes his stand,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 2010, http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_77c0a49d-1004-5391-a39c-25b259b3bb0e.html. 511 Ibid. 512 Traditionally, the election of the Missouri Synod’s president was seen as a divine call process rather than a political election. In other words, the convention would prayerfully consider the candidates, vote accordingly, and then the winner would either accept or decline the convention’s call. Though of course electioneering occurred, it was not explicit. Some historians have noted the genesis of explicit campaigning to J. A. O. Preus II, who supposedly used an organization to unseat a liberal candidate in the confessionalist bid to take over the synod,. This precipitated the Seminex schism. For a discussion of Preus’s use of political mechanisms to win the 1969 synodical presidential election, see Burkee, 95-150, and Adams. Of course, the denominational politics is nothing new. However, the degree to which independent individuals (both clerics and laymen) used technology and social media to support Harrison’s presidential bid is more representative of “Tea Party” conservative populist activism insofar as they acted independently of preexisting activist groups within the synod. For analysis of Tea Party activists’ use of media, see Theda Skopcol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and Remaking of Republican Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 83-120, and Nella Van Dyke and David S. Meyer, eds., Understanding the Tea Party Movement (New York: Routledge, 2016). 175 the political atmosphere as well as implying that Kieschnick was something other than a theologian.

The theologian won. Harrison received 643 votes, or 54% of the total vote. In his acceptance speech, Harrison noted the deep divisions in the Houston convention hall and in the synod but promised “that I will not coerce you. I will do my best, by the Word of Christ, to lead with the generous Gospel of Jesus Christ, which forgives us all of our sins and motivates us to love and care for our neighbor in mercy and compassion. And I will work as hard as I possibly can for unity around the clear and compelling Word of God and nothing else.”513 Harrison then proceeded to give his first postelection interview with “Issues, Etc.” Kieschnick’s supporters bemoaned the result. Huntsville, Texas, pastor Travis Pittock lamented that “this was a sad political campaign in the church where a politician, Harrison, beat out a real pastor, Rev.

Kieschnick, as the spiritual leader of the second largest Lutheran body in the wor[l]d [sic]!”, and he apologized to his readers for “what the next three years will bring.”514 Confessionalists, though, were ecstatic. A circular letter of northern Wisconsin LCMS pastors declared that “this will be Missouri’s finest hour.”515

Harrison’s election did not stem further controversy. Eerily similar to his predecessor,

Harrison quickly encountered the divisions within the synod regarding unionism. Following a

2013 school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, the local Missouri Synod pastor, Robert

Morris, participated in an interfaith memorial service that included Jews, Catholics, Muslims,

513 “For Immediate Release: Rev. Matthew C. Harrison’s Acceptance Speech,” The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, July 13, 2010, http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=898. 514 Travis Pittock, “Letter to the Editor,” Houston Chronicle, 26 July 2010, qted. in Tim Rossow, “Two More Responses to the Harrison Election, A Letter from Texas and a Letter from North Wisconsin, by Pr. Rossow,” July 29, 2010, http://steadfastlutherans.org/2010/07/two-more-responses-to-the-harrison-election-a-letter-from-texas-and- a-letter-from-north-wisconsin-by-pr-rossow/comment-page-2/. 515 Jody Walter, et. al., “Letter to the Editor,” Houston Chronicle, 26 July 2010, qtd. in Rossow. Accessed 15 September 2010. 176 and Baha’is. Morris believed that this was a civic event rather than a worship service, thus making his presence acceptable. Harrison sought an apology from Morris, which was quickly received.516 The president then published a pastoral letter acknowledging the apology, writing that “If we are to live this life with Christian conviction and zeal, willing to step forward at a very difficult moment and act, even to ‘sin boldly’ as Luther once advised Melanchthon…, it is also incumbent upon us to recognize that in so acting we may exceed the bounds of Christian freedom and may well give offense. We must be prepared also to repent boldly, and apologize boldly.”517 However, this did not quell the furor within the synod.

While non-Lutherans looked on in confusion as the controversy played out in the New

York media market, Missouri Synod moderates condemned Harrison as bringing scandal to the church and acting in an unloving manner. Kieschnick opined that outsiders would “shake their heads in disgust and dismay. For them, the image of our church becomes one of isolationism, sectarianism and legalism.”518 In response, Harrison apologized to Morris, his church, and the community of Newton, regretting how the situation was handled in public, had furthered divisions within the synod, and had “increased pain” in Newton in the wake of the shooting.519

However, unlike with Kieschnick, Harrison’s controversy over unionism did not hobble his reelection efforts. Harrison easily won reelection in 2013 (with 66% of the vote) and 2016 (with

57% of the vote).

516 “Lutheran pastor apologizes for attending Sandy Hook interfaith ,” New York Post, February 8, 2013, http://nypost.com/2013/02/08/lutheran-pastor-apologizes-for-attending-sandy-hook-interfaith-vigil. 517 Matthew C. Harrison, “Letter from President Harrison on Newton, CT,” Witness, Mercy, Life Together, February 1, 2013, http://wmltblog.org/2013/02/letter-from-president-harrison-on-newtown-ct. 518 “Lutheran pastor apologizes for attending Sandy Book interfaith vigil.” 519 Marc Santora, “After Rebuke, an Apology for Pastor in Newton,” New York Times, February 12, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/nyregion/rev-matthew-c-harrison-offers-apology-for-his-rebuke-of-newtown- pastor.html?_r=0. 177 Even though historians, when examining divisions with the Missouri Synod, have focused on the Seminex schism, deep divisions have persisted. The first decade of the twenty- first century was tumultuous for the Missouri Synod, and nearly all the controversies revolved around proper methods of ecumenical relations with other Christian churches. Both the 9/11

Yankee Stadium and 2013 Sandy Hook interfaith memorial services illuminated significant disagreements within the synod concerning the nature of unionism. Harrison’s election marked a clear departure from Kieschnick’s enthusiastic support for participation in such ceremonies.

However, Harrison’s own apology for his role in the Sandy Hook controversy demonstrated that his election had not rectified the issue. The Missouri Synod was still in need of a course correction. As the synodical president and one of the synod’s chief theologians, Harrison turned to Sasse to mold his church.

A Useful Lutheran: Harrison’s Editorial Apparatus in Letters to Lutheran Pastors

In order to use Sasse to bolster the confessionalism of the Missouri Synod, Harrison needed first to make Sasse useful. He accomplished this through the editorial apparatus he included in his translations of Sasse’s works. In three volumes published between 2013 and

2015, Harrison published all sixty-two circular letters that the German expat wrote from 1948 to

1969 through his synod’s Concordia Publishing House. Harrison’s apparatus was unique insofar as it was not an ostensibly balanced, academic set of references. Instead, the apparatus was argumentative. Through his partisan editing of Sasse’s work, which involved the inclusion of approximately thirty pages of testimonials praising Sasse (from living and dead confessional

Lutheran leaders) and a running commentary of correction of contemporary Lutherans as well as

Sasse himself through footnotes and appendices on Sasse’s perceived errors on scriptural

178 inerrancy and other areas, Harrison bolstered his vision of confessional Lutheran identity in a synod that is starkly divided between “conservative” and “moderate” Lutherans. Sasse thus became a symbol by which Harrison, a staunch confessional conservative, could remake

Missouri Synod Lutheranism while arguing against his contemporary opponents.520

In order to make Sasse useful as a guide for a synodical course correction, Harrison first needed to demonstrate Sasse’s trustworthiness and contemporary relevancy. The former was particularly important, as Sasse occasionally strayed from Missouri Synod orthodoxy on issues such as biblical inerrancy, as will be discussed later in this chapter. While confessionalists largely trusted Sasse, his rejection of the Bible’s plenary inspiration caused significant controversy within American confessional Lutheran circles, to the extent that the Wisconsin

Evangelical Lutheran Synod, deeming them heterodox, refused to publish his letters on the nature of scripture in their theological quarterly journal.521 Therefore, Harrison needed to redeem

Sasse despite his occasional heterodoxy. Additionally, since Sasse died in 1976 and his lamentations were directed specifically at postwar global Lutheranism, it was necessary for

Harrison to properly contextualize Sasse’s thought in order to make the letters relevant to

American confessional Lutherans four decades after their composition.

As one looks at Harrison’s first volume of Sasse’s letters, the first thing one notices as he or she opens the book is an approximately thirty page long section of endorsements of Sasse and

520 Paul C. Gutjahr, in his study of bibles in eighteenth and nineteenth century America, argued that, in order to study the role of the Bible in American culture, “one must begin with the book – or accurately, the books themselves” (Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999], 3). Gutjahr’s point was that print culture provides historical artifacts worthy of analysis. This argument was furthered developed by Elesha J. Coffman, in The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013),who argued that the rhetoric of the liberal Protestant Christian Century created cultural capital by claiming cultural normativity for liberal Protestantism, even though reality never fully matched perception. Coffman illustrated how church hierarchy use print culture in order to shape national religious discourse. As Matthew Harrison’s use of the editorial apparatus in his edited volumes, the same lesson can be applied to denominations and religious movements. 521 Kloha, 360-361. 179 his work by Lutheran theologians, entitled “Letters in Praise of Herman Sasse.”522 Two aspects of this section are noteworthy. First, of course, is the length. While it is normal for a book to contain a page or two of endorsements by luminaries in the volume’s field, thirty-four pages certainly exceeds the average amount of endorsements. The page length is indicative that

Harrison understands that a case needs to be made for Sasse, namely that Sasse is a trustworthy theologian who is relevant to the present, despite the fact that many of his letters are nearly a half-century old. Thirty-four pages provide ample opportunity for such a case to be made, as it is repetitiously presented through the testimonials that emphasize Sasse’s genius and seemingly timeless relevancy.

The timelessness of Sasse’s message, though, is further highlighted by the second noteworthy aspect of the section. Of the sixteen endorsements or testimonials included by

Harrison, six of their authors are dead. These pastors and leader speak from beyond the veil in order to endorse Sasse to the present generation of Lutherans, and, as Harrison constructs the front matter, they speak with a unified voice. Robert D. Preus (1924-1995), a former Missouri

Synod seminary president and brother of Jack Preus, the conservative synod president who precipitated the Seminex controversy, wrote that “I believe that Herman Sasse will be regarded…as one of the three most significant confessional Lutherans of our century... I say confessional Lutherans, because he was no faddist but first and last throughout his productive life a confessional and confessing Lutheran.”523 Preus also mentions the importance of the

Missouri Synod in Sasse’s theological life. Referencing the shift in Sasse’s theology of scriptural inspiration, Preus writes that “Sasse, the humble confessional Lutheran, changed his opinion on the meaning of the sola scriptura, in part at least because he was willing to listen to the solid

522 Sasse, Letters, 1:xi 523 Ibid., 1:xiii. 180 witness of the Missouri Synod, which he loved as a truly Lutheran synod and in which many of its members loved him, loved him because of his Lutheran witness.”524 According to Preus,

Sasse loved the Missouri Synod because it was “a truly Lutheran synod.” In turn, Missouri

Synod Lutherans requited the love “because of his Lutheran witness.” Sasse is important and relevant, Preus (and, by extension, Harrison) claims, because he is a witness of the power of confessional Lutheran theology exhibited by the Missouri Synod at a particular moment of its history and which ought to be replicated in the present time.

Sasse thus serves as a prophetic voice calling the Missouri Synod to return to (or re- entrench itself in) its confessional theology. Indeed, the word “prophetic” or some variant thereof occurs several times in the tributes paid to Sasse. Al Barry (1931-2001), a noted conservative and Gerald Kieschnick’s predecessor as LCMS president, wrote that “As one reads Dr. Sasse’s writings, one is struck by the prophetic nature of his comments. His warnings ring with an all- too-familiar truth. His encouragement, spoken in many cases decades ago, still sounds forth with precise clarity. His explanation of pressing theological concerns of his own day inform and enlighten our own grappling with similar issues.”525 Kurt Marquart (1934-2005), a past professor at Concordia Theological Seminary (Fort Wayne, IN), wrote:

We are beset before and behind by bureaucratism, populism, sociologism, sectarian illusions, marketeering, and plain unchurchly sentimental twaddle. In Missouri we have sometimes tried to keep these at bay with half-understood clichés from poorly translated [LCMS founder C. F. W.] Walther texts. Sasse’s sharp focus on the essentials of church, confession, ministry, and sacraments can help us recover and retain for succeeding generations the very heirloom Walther most keenly prized: the grace to walk in the church by faith, not by sight. That means trusting God’s power in the seamless evangelical and sacramental vesture of His revealed truth, and not running cravenly after the tawdry skirts of this world’s favor and success.526

524 Ibid., 1:xiv. 525 Ibid., 1:xxxvii. 526 Ibid., 1:xviii-xix. 181 In this lengthy quotation from his testimonial, Marquart claims that Sasse is a useful anecdote to business marketing approaches to church affairs and American evangelical, Willow Creek

Community Church-style “church growth” tactics that have served as a sore point of controversy amongst Missouri Synod pastors.527 Through “Letters in Praise of Herman Sasse,” Harrison argues for the relevance of Sasse to current situations by relying on the past testimonials of theologians sometimes deceased. The format of the book’s opening clearly communicates

Harrison’s point: Sasse and his message are timeless and trustworthy.

Harrison furthers this point through his prefaces and footnotes to Sasse’s letters.

Harrison’s editorial references are partisan and argumentative in nature, applying Sasse’s critiques of mid-twentieth century Lutheranism to contemporary Lutheranism. Harrison interpreted Sasse as a prophetic voice against ecumenism, unionism, and liberalism. For instance, in Letter 31, written in 1953, Sasse warned that “the Lutheran churches of America are on the verge of losing their character as confessional churches.”528 In the introductory editorial preface to Letter 31, Harrison noted that “this letter shows Sasse’s uncanny prophetic insight.” Harrison continued by applying Sasse’s thoughts to events in late twentieth century American Lutheran history: “In the Missouri Synod we have lived this loss of dogmatic content as we descended into

Seminex and still, forty years after, struggle out of it. Meanwhile, just fifty-six years after Sasse wrote, the bishop of the ELCA (not trained in a Lutheran seminary – an issue Sasse emphasizes) leads his church body into the approbation of homosexual marriage.”529 In Harrison’s eyes, Sasse foresaw the deterioration of confessional Lutheranism in America that resulted in schism and

527 See, for instance, Preus, The Fire and the Staff: Lutheran Theology in Practice, which savages “church growth” methods while advocating an emphasis on Word and Sacraments in the local church. Additionally, confessionalists frequently attacked Gerald Kieschnick’s administration for focusing on church marketing and bureaucratic efficiency as he attempted to implement Church Growth methodologies in the Missouri Synod. Therefore, Marquart’s statement can be read as criticizing Kieschnick and his allies. 528 Sasse, Letters, 2:250. 529 Ibid., 2:242. 182 outright heresy (whether acceptance of homosexual marriage in ELCA or residues of liberalism within the Missouri Synod). In light of these negative prophecies, Harrison issues a cri du coeur:

“The task for the remaining orthodox American Lutheran Churches is clear: rediscover, retain, and transmit the dogmatic content of Lutheranism…and share doctrinal Lutheranism with the world as we assist younger churches [in the Global South] toward genuine Lutheran confession in the face of contemporary issues and situations.”530 Elsewhere, concerning Sasse’s dire predictions for the confessional fidelity of the Church of Sweden, Harrison declares that “today’s apostasy of the Church of Sweden is a sad end which Sasse prophetically lamented already in

1954.”531 Harrison even sees Sasse’s views on globalism’s impact on the church in Letter 40 as prophetic: “The introductory comments about a shrinking, a globally linked world, might have been written in 2014 and not in 1955!”532

“God Does Not Lie”: Sasse and Harrison on Inerrancy

While Harrison upholds Harrison as an example for the twenty-first century Missouri

Synod, he also criticizes Sasse, using his editorial position to correct Sasse’s seeming heterodoxies. In particular, Harrison corrects Sasse’s doctrine of scripture, in which Sasse explicitly rejected biblical plenary inspiration, and Sasse’s critiques of Lutheran scholastics such as Franz Pieper, a noted late nineteenth and early twentieth century Missouri Synod systematic theologian. Through his corrections of Sasse, Harrison defends the Missouri Synod’s belief in biblical inerrancy as well as the confessionalists’ reliance upon Lutheran scholastic theology.

Sasse thus proves himself useful to Harrison’s quest to reshape the Missouri Synod in two

530 Ibid., 2:242. 531 Ibid., 2:334. 532 Ibid., 2:404. 183 senses. First, he provides a cautionary note warning the Missouri Synod where not to go, as

Sasse’s slippage on biblical inspiration was similar to that held by the liberals in the Seminex controversy. Therefore, Harrison reveals the dangers in Sasse’s position. Second, however, he provides a positive direction for the future of confessional Lutheranism. Harrison demonstrates this, again, through the apparatus. Through a series of appendices to Sasse’s letters on scripture,

Harrison reveals that Sasse repented of his nearly Barthian understanding of scripture and turned to a position closer to that of the Missouri Synod. Therefore, Sasse redeemed himself through acknowledging Harrison’s critiques and validated them, granting Harrison’s interpretation of confessional Lutheranism increased authority and validity.

In a 2013 interview with “Issues, Etc.,” Matthew Harrison noted that, “Coming from the halls of Berlin, [Sasse] never identified completely with [the Missouri Synod’s] position on scripture….”533 In other words, Sasse denied biblical inerrancy. As Sasse composed his circular pastoral letters, Sasse articulated his doctrine of scripture in Letters 14 and 16, which he composed in 1950.534 Ironically, given Sasse’s opposition to Karl Barth and the Confessing

Church during the Nazi era in Germany, he was heavily influenced by Barth’s theology of the

Word. In essence, Sasse believed that the Lutheran Confessions did not provide a dogma of scripture or of scriptural inspiration.535 Instead, “the doctrine that the Holy Scripture is given, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the self-understood presupposition for the understanding of the

Bible which Luther and the Lutheran Confessions had, even when it was either not expressed at all or expressed only incidentally.”536 Because biblical inspiration was a “self-understood

533 Matthew C. Harrison, interviewed by Todd Wilken, Issues, Etc., KFUO 850 AM, October 23, 2013. 534 For a technical, detailed description of Sasse’s doctrine of scripture and its relation to Letters 14 and 16, see Kloha, “Hermann Sasse Confesses the Doctrine de Scriptura Sacra.” 535 To this end, he rejected the scholarship of American confessional Lutheran theologian in The Inspiration of Scripture: A Study of the Theology of the 17th-Century Lutheran Dogmaticians (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955). 536 Sasse, Letters, 1:246. 184 presupposition” for Luther and his successors, it was never adequately articulated in the confessions. Sasse attempted to correct this, arguing that a dogma of inspiration must be forged that meets the needs of the Lutheran Church in a time of postwar and ecumenical turmoil and is faithful to God’s Word’s self-testimony of itself as simultaneously fully human and fully divine.

According to Sasse, the Word of God is equivalent with the Bible. “God’s Word exists also outside the Scripture,” he argued. “It existed before the Scripture as the Word of the Lord that came to the prophet, was given to him, and was written down only later; and it exists after the Scripture as the preaching in which the Scripture is expounded.”537 Commenting on the process of inspiration, Sasse claims that it is ultimately a mystery. Regarding the word theopneustos (“inspiration”) in 2 Timothy 3:16, Sasse writes that “it obviously means that God’s pneuma [“spirit”] is present in the graphe [“writing”], or that this writing is, so to say, filled with the Spirit of God, without enabling anyone to determine with certainty anything concerning the way the graphe arose.”538 Therefore, theologians erred – and went beyond scripture – when they

“saw in inspiration a formal process and an actual fact which had in no way anything to do with the content.”539 Accordingly, the problem with plenary inspiration is that it dictates a process that is not warranted by the Bible’s self-testimony. Furthermore, it negates the human element of scripture.540 Sasse argued that “if we must say of the Bible, with all seriousness and without any reservations, that it is God’s Word and the Holy Spirit its author, then we must declare no less seriously, on the other hand that the books of the Bible are genuine man’s word, written by sinful, fallible, and imperfect human authors.”541 Sasse adopted a deeply Chalcedonian

537 Ibid., 1:247. 538 Ibid., 1:250. 539 Ibid., 1:255. 540 Ibid., 1:262. 541 Ibid., 1:262. 185 understanding of the Word that mirrors Karl Barth’s theology of the Word as found in Church

Dogmatics I/2.542

Similarly to Barth, Sasse denied scriptural inerrancy insofar as he allowed for historical or scientific errors in the Bible. Sasse defined inspiration as “the phenomenon in which God the

Holy Spirit placed His words of revelation…into the heart of a person for oral proclamation or written deposition….”543 The Holy Spirit’s role as the source of inspiration does not negate human error. “The Holy Spirit does not lie,” Sasse wrote. “But in speaking to us in the Bible in human language and script, His Word shares in the weakness of man’s word. The Holy Spirit is omniscient. But He does not tell us everything in the Bible; for He speaks through men who are not omniscient and cannot speak the language of divine omniscience.”544 Rather, the Bible is the

Word of God as it points to Christ, as Luther recognized.545 Later theologians, including

Lutheran scholastic theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, erred by attempting to penetrate the mystery of inspiration by “set[ting] up a theory to explain why it was errorless and why it had to be errorless.”546

Sasse’s doctrine of scripture flies in the face the trajectory of American fundamentalist theology of scripture in the twentieth century America, as well as the position adopted and enforced by Missouri Synod in the latter half of the century.547 He was well aware of this, as he

542 Sasse explicitly calls his theology of the Word Chalcedonian, writing that “it has been recognized that, corresponding to the doctrine of Christ’s person, both the true divinity and the true humanity of the one Holy Scripture must be asserted: theia panta kai anthropina panta, omnio divine et omnia humana. Just as since the has to steer a course between the Scylla of and the Charybdis of , even so the doctrine concerning the Holy Scripture must be careful not to suffer shipwreck on the cliffs of rationalistic, history-of-religion’s understanding of the Scripture and a supernaturalistic, docetic understanding of the Scripture” (Ibid., 262). 543 Sasse, Letters, 1:268. 544 Ibid., 1:272. 545 Ibid., 1:273. 546 Ibid., 1:273. 547 For a discussion of debates about inerrancy and scriptural authority in twentieth century American evangelicalism, see Worthen. 186 viciously criticized American fundamentalism, which he saw as a Reformed heresy which had no place in Lutheranism. Sasse bemusedly described fundamentalism as “faith in a sacred book…which really no longer exists. For the original manuscripts are not, of course, extant anymore, and we don’t know what they really are.”548 Furthermore, fundamentalism rejects faith, since the fundamentalist believes that his or her faith must be rooted in a provable fact, namely the factuality of every biblical claim. Sasse asked, “Can he believe who does not believe the

Word but still needs a relic to confirm the Word? And do we need to believe something besides the Word of God?”549 Sasse feared that these Reformed fundamentalist theories of scripture were corrupting American Lutheranism, drawing them away from a true notion of faith as well as a

Chalcedonian understanding of scripture.

Harrison disagreed with Sasse. Rather, Harrison defended the Missouri Synod policy of subscribing to biblical inerrancy. In 1973, the Missouri Synod adopted a “Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles,” which outlined the synod’s official positions on the Bible and

Lutheran Confessions. Though opposed by many of the faculty at Concordia Seminary in St.

Louis and by pastors who eventually separated from the synod in the Seminex schism, a synod convention adopted the statement, and it has been consistently referenced by Harrison and other confessionalists as a standard of orthodoxy within the synod. The statement advocated plenary inspiration and complete inerrancy without hesitation. Much like a sixteenth or seventeenth century confession, the statement provided positive statements of faith followed by anathemas.

Amongst the views condemned was the belief that “recognition of the primary purpose of

Scripture makes it irrelevant whether such questions of fact as the following are answered in the affirmative: Were Adam and Eve real historical individuals? Did Israel cross the Red Sea on dry

548 Sasse, Letters, 1:281. 549 Ibid., 1:281. 187 land? Did the brazen serpent miracle actually take place? Was Jesus really born of a virgin? Did

Jesus perform all the attributed to Him? Did Jesus’ resurrection actually involve the return to life of His dead body?”550 The synod upheld the historical veracity of every story in the

Bible. Later in the statement, the synod confessed that “we therefore believe, teach and confess that since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, they contain no errors or contradictions but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth.”551 Sasse’s interpretation of biblical inspiration did not cohere with this statement. Instead, the synod’s views were in line with that of the American fundamentalists that Sasse condemned.552 Sasse needed correction, and Harrison provided it.

Harrison meted out correction through his footnotes. Whereas most editors use footnotes to clarify references (and Harrison does often do that), he primarily used the footnotes for

Sasse’s Letters 14 and 16 to pitch a running theological battle with his dead subject. If Sasse often lacked subtlety, Harrison returned the favor, vigorously injecting himself into the conversation. For instance, he rejected Sasse’s claim that orthodox, scholastic Lutheran theologians in the seventeenth century adopted a Reformed theology of scriptural inerrancy, which implied that biblical inerrancy was foreign to Lutheran theology.553 Harrison countered by labelling it a “sweeping and inaccurate assertion” that provided theological protection for liberal

550 A Statement on Scriptural and Confessional Principles (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1973), 3. 551 Ibid., 5. 552 Biblical inerrancy was deeply rooted in Missouri Synod doctrine. It was inscribed into Missouri Synod thought primarily through Franz Pieper (1852-1931), who served as a synodical president and was the synod’s most prolific systematic theologian. His Christian Dogmatics is still the main theology textbook for seminarians of the Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Concerning his articulation of the doctrine of inspiration, see Lawrence R. Rast, Jr., “Franz August Otto Pieper (1852-1931): ‘A Connecting Link between the Present Age and that of the Fathers and Founders of Lutheranism,” Lutheran Synodical Quarterly 45, no. 1 (2005): 13-16. 553 “That it was the Gneiso-Lutheran who made the early-Catholic-Calvinistic theory of Bible- inspiration the shibboleth of orthodox Lutheranism is one of the ironies of the history of dogma” (Sasse, Letters, 1:245). 188 deniers of inerrancy in the Seminex schism.554 He then rendered a theological judgment: “As of

2007 I think it is quite fair to say that while a church may not be Lutheran because of its dogma of absolute inerrancy, a church cannot and will not remain confessional Lutheran without or against the dogma of absolute inerrancy.”555 In other words, Sasse was wrong; absolute inerrancy is necessary for the preservation of the Lutheran Church. Though he does not explicitly state it, he implicitly points to other Lutheran churches that denied biblical inerrancy, such as those that formed the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which ordains women into the ministry, performs homosexual marriages, and practices pulpit and altar fellowship with

Methodists, Reformed, Episcopalian, and other non-Lutheran churches. Additionally, by raising the specter of Seminex, Harrison reminded his readers (primarily pastors) of his synod’s troubled past with controversies over inerrancy. Insofar as Sasse’s position inevitably leads to liberalism and the neutering of confessional Lutheranism, which, from Harrison’s perspective, occurred in the Missouri Synod in the 1960s and 1970s, Sasse’s position on inerrancy is a cautionary tale for the present.

Harrison’s corrections are not only theological in nature but also historical. In doing so,

Harrison protects the Lutheran scholastic theologians whom confessionalists view as authoritative. When Sasse argued that the sixteenth century Lutheran theologian Martin

Chemnitz did not address the question “What is the authority of Scripture based upon, and what does it mean when it is said that the Scripture is God’s Word?”, Harrison cried foul, declaring that “This is simply not the case” and then providing historical evidence to support his assertion.556 By parrying Sasse’s historical claim, Harrison defended both the doctrine of

554 Ibid., 1:245n5. 555 Sasse, 1:245n5. 556 Ibid., 1:246 and 246n6. 189 inerrancy and Chemnitz’s theological authority within the synod. Arguing that Chemnitz not only supported but articulated inerrancy in his Examinations of the , Harrison challenged Sasse’s claim that the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the Bible was “the self-understood presupposition” of Luther and the Confessors, and inerrancy was a later dubious development.557

Instead, Harrison argued that biblical inerrancy as confessed by the Missouri Synod in the twenty-first century was also confessed by the original Lutherans of the sixteenth century.

Therefore, Sasse was not only theological incorrect but historically incorrect. Harrison continued this line of correction through Letters 14 and 16, frequently simply providing quotations from

Lutheran scholastics like Chemnitz or Johann Gerhard or even Luther himself to point out a perceived error in Sasse’s letter. Ideally, a confessional Lutheran reader quickly comes to the conclusion that Sasse is wrong in his interpretation of biblical inerrancy and that he, rather than the synod, is out of step with traditional Lutheran doctrine.

While it may seem that, through it merciless footnote system, Harrison rendered Sasse useless in his quest to push his synod in a more conservative, confessionalist direction, he avoided this pitfall by allowing Sasse a chance to respond. In Harrison’s edition of Letters to

Lutheran Pastors, Sasse speaks through the appendices, in which he redeems himself by rejecting the positions he took in Letters 14 and 16. In other words, following Harrison’s rebuttal of Sasse through the various quotations and judgments offered in the footnotes, Sasse acknowledges Harrison as victorious. In the last quarter century of his life, Sasse did revisit and revise his doctrine of scripture. In the 1960s, when correspondents wrote Sasse concerning Letter

14, he would refer to his later writings, which adopted a more conservative approach to biblical inspiration.558 Indeed, he refused to allow Letter 14 to be republished in English in the 1960s,

557 Ibid., 1:246. 558 Kloha, 383. 190 and he reproached students at Concordia Seminary for mimeographing it without his permission.

In 1967, Sasse wrote the Concordia Seminary bookstore, asking them to cease selling copies of the letter because, after further research and reflection, he no longer agreed with his conclusions.559

In his appendices, Harrison details Sasse’s rejection of his earlier standpoint. Harrison published Sasse’s 1967 letter to the seminary bookstore as well as a quote from a 1969 letter: “I made the great mistake to admit that there were errors in Scripture in nontheological matters. I had to revise this after a thorough study of the concept of biblical truth.”560 In another letter,

Sasse laments that liberals have used his Letter 14 “to propagate their liberalism at another person’s expense and to discredit at the same time my orthodoxy….”561 Finally, Harrison included “Theses on Scripture and Inspiration” from Sasse’s Lutheran Church of Australia. Sasse sent copies of these theses to those inquiring about his own position on biblical authority. The theses confess that the Bible “is God’s Word as a whole and in all its parts. We reject all attempts made to distinguish between that which is Word of God in the Scripture and that which is not….”562 Furthermore, while the church acknowledged that the Bible “as the Word of God written by men is at the same time both divine and human,” it also confessed “the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Scriptures.”563

Most important, though, are footnotes to Letter 14 that Sasse added in 1967 and 1969, as it became clear that, despite his wishes, the letter would not cease circulating. In the footnote,

Sasse explicitly defended the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. He discovered the doctrine in the

559 Ibid., 384. 560 Sasse, Letters, 1:285. 561 Ibid., 1:286. 562 Ibid., 1:289. 563 Ibid., 1:289. 191 Lutheran Confessions as the corollary to the statement that “God does not lie. My neighbor and I

– in short, all men – may err and deceive, but God’s Word cannot err.”564 Therefore, Sasse ceded

Harrison’s point that the doctrine of inerrancy can be found in the Confessions. He then went a step further by claiming that the doctrine had particular relevance for Lutherans, since, unlike

Catholic reliance upon Tradition, “we have no [other] fundamen on which we base our doctrine than Scripture alone.”565 Therefore, God’s Word must be inerrant, because there is nothing else to supplement it. While Sasse maintains his claim inerrancy “does not mean that we believe it to be free from the deficiencies and limitations of truly human writings,” he more forcefully states that “the human word of the apostle has become God’s living and powerful Word, full of grace and truth, free from the untruth and error of this world.”566 Thus, through letters and added clarifications to Letter 14, Sasse retreated from his earlier criticisms of inerrancy, issued a mea culpa, and acknowledged the validity of Harrison’s criticisms.

Since Sasse relented and repented, he is useful for Harrison in two manners. First, if viewed from the standpoint of a redemption narrative, Sasse embodied the story of the Missouri

Synod. From Harrison’s perspective, the Missouri Synod allowed liberalism to encroach on its theology by questioning biblical inerrancy during the 1960s and 1970s. However, through a series of synodical conventions which elected conservative officers and resulted in the Seminex schism, the synod corrected its course and returned to its confession of biblical inerrancy. Sasse did the same in his own theology, as he swerved from inerrancy only to return to it once he understood the stakes. Therefore, his life taught that returning to confessional Lutheranism is never impossible. Second, through the imagined dialogue that Harrison constructs with Sasse

564 Large Catechism IV 57, qtd. In Sasse, Letters, 1:294. 565 Sasse, Letters, 1:294. 566 Ibid., 1:297. 192 through his footnote system, Harrison’s vision of confessional Lutheranism is validated.

Harrison demonstrated that Sasse misinterpreted Lutheran history and theology and that, once

Sasse’s mistakes were illuminated by Harrison’s intellectual predecessors, he acknowledged and rectified his errors. Sasse thus posthumously endorsed Harrison’s interpretation of Lutheranism.

As he shifted the synod away from Kieschnick’s moderate version of confessional Lutheranism,

Harrison found an ally. For Harrison’s purposes, Sasse’s heterodoxy made him all the more orthodox – and all the more valuable.

Conclusion

Sasse’s life and afterlife illuminate many themes of the history of confessional

Lutheranism in America. First, confessional Lutheranism is not an American theological phenomenon. While confessional Lutherans predominantly reside in North America, their theological influences span the globe. Sasse was a cradle Lutheran from Germany who became, in his mind, a “real” Lutheran while studying at a liberal New England seminary, returned to

Germany to teach at Erlangen, and, disgusted with his home church, retreated to Australia, from where he sent circular letters to pastors around the globe. Sasse’s impact defies geography as well as conceptions of conservative Protestantism in the United States. Sasse likely encountered confessional Protestantism fundamentalism during his studies at Hartford, and these views influenced his theology, which he took home to Germany and applied to the Kirchenkampf.

Later, American Lutheran pastors who received his circular letters read commentary on global

Lutheranism from Australia. It also bares mentioning that Harrison is using an otherwise obscure

Australian churchman to reconstruct the denominational memory of the multimillion member

193 Missouri Synod. Analyzed through the lens of Sasse, the history of American confessional

Lutheranism spans three continents.

Second, Hermann Sasse reminds scholars of the theological potential of amillennialism to shape worldviews. Sasse read church history through the lens of inaugurated eschatology, which he inherited from Lutheranism’s traditionally amillennial views. Too often, when scholars probe the apocalyptic imagination of conservative Protestantism, they restrict their focus to premillennialism. Though amillennialists might lack the dramatic panache of some premillennialists, their eschatological viewpoint is neither less apocalyptic than dispensationalists nor any less potent of a tool with which conservative Protestants can understand current events or life struggles. Sasse understood the perceived theological crisis as one of Satan’s end time assaults on the church. However, he did not lose hope, since Christ’s presence had already begun through the means of grace. Sasse linked eschatology with sacramental theology in order to make sense of his situation, and it worked for him.

Third, and finally, Sasse’s legacy demonstrates the importance of book culture as a source of denominational identity. Matthew Harrison’s creative editorship of Sasse’s Letters to

Lutheran Pastors shapes Sasse’s story into useful history as he crafts a guiding narrative for the

Missouri Synod’s future. For Harrison, Sasse is both a warning in terms of the dangers of creeping liberalism as well as prophet speaking from the Church Triumphant concerning the importance of confessional ecumenism. Through Harrison and Concordia Publishing House,

Sasse, four decades after his death, has become a central figure in Missouri Synod squabbles concerning its own identity as well as its relationship to ecumenism. Whereas Sasse refused to sign the Bethel and Barman Declarations for confessional reasons and was repaid with self-exile and obscurity, the Missouri Synod debates whether or not interfaith prayer services violate the

194 Scriptures, resulting in division within the synod and confusion and derision from a disbelieving public. Confessional Lutheranism’s tension-filled relationship with ecumenism, and the sometimes painfully public nature of that tension, has defined twentieth and twenty-first century

American confessional Lutheranism.

195 CHAPTER 4

“DOGMA PRAYED”: THE DIVINE SERVICE, LUTHERAN HYMNALS, AND AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pastors and concerned laity frequently would send questions concerning doctrine and religious practice to faculty at synodical seminaries. In response, the faculty would compose Gutachten, or theological opinions, which would provide an authoritative answer to the query. In 1883, C. F. W. Walther responded to an inquiry concerning whether or not it was appropriate for Missouri Synod pastors or Sunday

School teachers to use Methodist hymns in Lutheran Sunday Schools. Needless to say, Walther did not approve of the practice. According to Walther, not only is Lutheran usage of Methodist hymns “very incorrect and pernicious,” but “Our church is so rich in hymns that you could justifiably state that if one were to introduce Methodist hymns in a Lutheran school, this would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. The singing of such hymns would make the rich Lutheran

Church into a beggar that is forced to beg from a miserable sect.”567 Lest the reader miss

Walther’s point, he declared that

it is soul-murder to set before children such poisonous food. If the preacher claims that he allows only “correct” hymns to be sung, this does not excuse him. For, first of all, the true Lutheran spirit is found in none of them; second, our hymns are more powerful, more substantive, and more prosaic; third, those hymns which deal with the Holy Sacraments are completely in error; fourth, when these little sectarian hymnbooks come into the hands of our children, they openly read and sing false hymns.568

567 C. F. W. Walther, “Methodist Hymns in a Lutheran Sunday School,” in At Home in the House of My Fathers, 331. 568 Ibid., 332. 196 Furthermore, unless the Lutheran minister filched the Methodist hymnal, he paid for it and thus

“subsidizes the false church and strengthens the Methodist fanatics in their horrible errors.”569

Wisdom dictates, therefore, that Lutherans avoid the hymns of the Schwärmerei at all costs.

Walther’s vehement disapproval of using Methodist hymns in is unsurprising, given his negative attitude towards Methodists. Because he viewed Methodism as a false, destructive form of Christianity, he did not want to expose inhabitants of his Lutheran Zion to their doctrine or inoculate them to its dangers through Methodist hymnody. However, the

Gutachten is still seen as relevant today. Matthew Harrison, the Missouri Synod president, translated the opinion for his anthology of writings of the first five synodical presidents, At Home in the House of My Fathers: Presidential Sermons, Essays, Letters, and Addresses from the

Missouri Synod’s Great Era of Unity and Growth. Note the descriptive subtitle. Harrison believes that the ministries of those early presidents constituted the synod’s “great era of unity and growth” which apparently stands in contrast to the “chaos” that ensued with the rise of perceived moderates and liberals within the synod during the administration of John Behnken from 1935 to 1962.570 In his preface, Harrison claims that he is not “motivated by mere ecclesiastical nostalgia, a ridiculous longing for a church long gone, or a quest to return Missouri to an allegedly more glorious past.”571 Rather, he seeks to demonstrate that the early presidents

569 Ibid., 332. 570 According to Matthew Harrison and likeminded confessional Lutherans, the Missouri Synod began to go through spiritual decline in the 1920s. Harrison writes that “The decade of the 1920s was in many ways parallel to the decade of the 1960s” (Harrison, At Home in the House of My Fathers, 771). Harrison praises the prescription to spiritual malaise offered by Friedrich Pfotenhauer, the last president surveyed in his anthology, “To the Word! To the Confessions! Back to the basics!” (ibid., 771). Confessionalists bemoaned an increased openness to cooperation with other Protestant denominations and deemphasizing Lutheran distinctives. For instance, the Missouri Synod’s openness to prayer with Christians not in fellowship with the Missouri Synod as well as fellowship discussions with the , which disagreed with the Missouri Synod on some theological points, led the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Wisconsin Synod to break fellowship with the Missouri Synod in 1955 and 1961, respectively. See Mark E. Braun, A Tale of Two Synods: Events That Led to the Split between Wisconsin and Missouri (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2003). 571 Harrison, At Home in the House of My Fathers, xiii. 197 “still have something to say to us today.” Much like Sasse, C. F. W. Walther and his first four successors are relevant for today. Lawrence R. Rast, Jr., the president of the Missouri Synod’s

Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, wrote in the foreword that the writings included in the anthology demonstrate that if one “bring[s] doctrine, practice, and mission together…remarkable things can happen. Practicing substantive doctrine in mission can result in extraordinary unity and growth.”572 Rast claimed that “at the heart of all these texts [in the anthology] is the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ….”573 Thus, Harrison’s inclusion of Walther’s anathema against Methodist hymnody illustrates that he believes that Walther’s opinion provides a blueprint for the Missouri Synod to follow in order to regain past glory and be faithful to scripture and the Confessions. Lutheran worship should be Lutheran. Anything else is “soul murder.”

Hymnals are central to confessional Lutheran religious life. Even more than Luther’s

Small Catechism, which a Lutheran will use primarily during confirmation classes, the hymnal is the distinctively Lutheran text with which the congregant will engage with the most. Lutheran hymnals do not consist solely of hymns. Rather, they are devotional texts designed by synods to shape an individual’s religious life and craft a denomination’s identity. Hymnals contain various settings for the Divine Service, which the congregant will often reference during worship if the minister does not print the liturgy out in a bulletin. Additionally, hymnals contain a variety of front matter, such as personal prayers, catechism, creeds and confessions, and a . Unlike the Confessions, hymnals are not set in stone. Seemingly once every thirty years, a synod will commission a new hymnal that contain different materials as well as new contemporary and

“traditional” hymns. However, hymnals define confessional Lutheranism nearly as much as the

572 Ibid., xv. 573 Ibid., xvi. 198 Confessions themselves. Through the hymnal’s content and design, synods define their denominational identity.

Whether or not all of the front matter is utilized by congregants is almost immaterial, because hymnals are material artifacts that shed light on denominational concerns.574 If Matthew

Harrison’s editorial apparatus in his edition of Hermann Sasse’s Letters to Lutheran Pastors serves as a means by which Harrison charts the direction of his synod, even more so is the case with hymnals. In 1995, Colleen McDannell invited scholars of American religion to not only focus on texts but also on material objects. Arguing that text-centric approaches to history relied upon a Protestant dualism that separated the sacred (immaterial) from the profane (material),

McDanell noted that the material and immaterial “mingle” throughout religion and everyday life through various religious artifacts, such as Bibles or Latter-day Saint temple garments.575 Paul C.

Gutjahr’s study of American bibles follows this intellectual trajectory, arguing that changes in bible production, packaging, and proliferation illustrates a evolution in American utilizations of the text. Also, Gutjahr points out that popular usage of a book or its contents is not essential for a book fulfilling its purpose. Recounting the presence of a bible at George

Washington’s inauguration, Gutjahr notes that “What is perhaps most striking…is the complete absence of any mention that the volume was actually read.”576 This illustrates how “books are often powerful mediums of communication in and of themselves.”577 This is particularly true given the changing shape of Lutheran hymnals over the course of American history.

574 This point is argued in Edith L. Blumhofer and Mark A. Noll, eds., Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Hymnody in the History of North American Protestantism (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2004), and Mark A. Noll and Edith L. Blumhofer, eds., Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2006. 575 Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 576 Gutjahr, 41. 577 Ibid., 41. 199 The first Lutheran hymnals were not officially sponsored by any church. The first

Lutheran “hymnal” consisted of eight hymns accompanied by five tunes.578 Later hymnals were quickly organized and published by independent ventures. When Danes arrived in northern

Canada in 1619, the accompanying pastor inevitably led them in song from one of a number of

Danish psalmeboger available to the .579 In 1786, Henry

Muhlenberg published Erbauliche Liedersammlung zum Gottesdienstlichen Gebrauch in den

Vereinigten Evangelisch Lutherischen Gemeinen in Nord-America, the organized and published in North America. While Muhlenberg’s hymnal was authorized by the

Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium in North America and meant to unify Lutherans under one common book, it did not deter competitors, as various ministers, representing Pietist, rationalist, or confessionalist strains of North American Lutheranism, sought to improve on Muhlenberg’s effort over the ensuing decades.580 Importantly, though, every Lutheran hymnal sought to shape

Lutheranism. For instance, Rationalist Lutheran Frederick Henry Quitman published A

Collection of Hymns, and a Liturgy, for the use of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1814, which drew primarily from English language hymnody, eliminated Lutheran chorales, and modified hymn texts to fit his vision of a rationalist American Lutheranism.581 Gradually over

578 Carl F. Schalk, God’s Song in a New Land: Lutheran Hymnals in America (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995), 23. Concerning early Lutheran hymnody, see Konrad Ameln, The Roots of German Hymnody of the Reformation Era, Pamphlet Series, Hymnology no. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964); Christopher Boyd Brown, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); Joseph Herl, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism: Choir, Congregation, and Three Centuries of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Robin A. Leaver, Luther’s : Principles and Implications, Lutheran Quarterly Books (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007); Eric Lund, ed., Seventeenth-Century Lutheran Meditations and Hymns, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 2011); C. Howard Smith, Scandinavian Hymnody from the Reformation to the Present, ATLA Monograph Series, No. 23 (Metuchen, NJ: The American Theological Library Association and The Scarecrow Press, 1987), 1-29. 579 Schalk, God’s Song in a New Land, 32. Schalk, a Missouri Synod Lutheran composer, is quite proud of the fact that Lutheran chorales were sung in America a year before the Mayflower landed and brought with it metered psalmody to New England. 580 Ibid., 39-65. 581 Ibid., 68-75. 200 the course of the nineteenth century, Lutheran hymnals became products of denominational committees rather than individual efforts and thus reflected official concerns. From their inception to the present, American Lutheran hymnals reflect theological conflict as well as efforts to reshape American Lutheranism.

This chapter will analyze Lutheran hymnals as polemical artifacts designed by confessional Lutheran synods to construct their own identity by distinguishing themselves from

American evangelicalism. In other words, hymnals are reactions. Accusing evangelicals of being too freewheeling, ahistorical, and emotionally subjective, confessional Lutheran hymnals emphasize theological orthodoxy, connection to Lutheran tradition, and the objectivity of the

Word and Sacraments. First, the role of the Divine Service and its liturgy in confessional

Lutheran theology will be discussed. Since hymnals not only contain several liturgical settings but also are intended to be used during the Divine Service, they cannot be divorced from their practical theological context. Second, Lutheran critiques of American evangelical worship practices will be described. Many Lutheran pastors have spilled much ink authoring jeremiads decrying the impoverished state of American evangelicalism. In particular, many of these critiques attack the centrality of subjective emotion in evangelical worship services as well as a perceived doctrinal ambivalence. In contrast, Lutheran worship conceives itself as offering objective, divine truth detached from emotion due to its roots in God’s Word and, thus, orthodox theology. These polemics impact how hymnals are constructed. The third section will address how hymnals communicate these theological concerns. Through the hymns selected (or ignored) by the committees, modified hymn texts, hymnal design, and front matter, hymnals define themselves against their evangelical competition. Reacting to perceived heterodoxy, confessional

201 Lutheran hymnals are confessional material objects that construct identity while regulating religious experience.

“Full Gospel”: The Divine Service

The Divine Service is Lutheranism’s central ritual. A modified version of the Roman

Catholic Mass, the service follows approved found within the hymnals.582 The different versions follow various historical permutations of the Lutheran liturgy as it developed following

Luther’s composition of the in 1523. While the format remains fairly constant, the words of the prayers are variable within the confines of the liturgy. Within Lutheran worship, the Divine Service has two primary versions. The first, the Service of Word and Sacrament, contains both the preaching of the Word through the sermon as well as the Lord’s Supper, while the second, the Service of the Word, foregoes the Sacrament of the Altar in favor of the sermon as the service’s high point.583 Confessional Lutheran theology treats the Divine Service not simply as a worship service or action offered by humans to God but rather as an eschatological moment in which time erodes as God serves his people. In this context, the worshippers are passive recipients of God’s grace, which are communicated by his appointed means, the Word and Sacraments. The Word comes through preaching, the sacraments, and hymnody. By granting complete objectivity to the Means of Grace, confessional Lutherans attempt to displace

582 While some pastors will experiment with new liturgies they composed, this is discouraged and infrequent. 583 This is a controversial practice within confessional Lutheranism. Non-weekly communion is residue from the diminished practice of the Lord’s Supper in eighteenth and nineteenth century Lutheranism as a result of rationalism’s influence on European Lutheranism. In American Lutheranism, the Lord’s Supper would be administered monthly or quarterly. This situation changed following the liturgical revival of the mid-twentieth century and has resulted in more frequent administration of the sacrament in confessional Lutheran churches. However, this has garnered opposition from some Lutherans, who perceive weekly communion as “too Catholic.” Concerning the debate, see Kenneth W. Wieting, The Blessings of Weekly Communion (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006). For a Missouri Synod perspective on the ’s impact on Lutheranism, see Timothy C. J. Quill, The Impact of the Liturgical Movement on American Lutheranism, Drew Series in Liturgy, no. 3 (Landham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1997). 202 emotional subjectivity and free will from worship. The Divine Service is also a confessional moment in which Lutherans, through the sacraments, announce their commitment to Lutheran doctrine, as evidenced by the practice of closed communion.

The Divine Service, as liturgical worship, presents a dramatic dialogue between God and humans, with the minister speaking on the part of God.584 It is divided into three parts: The

Service of Preparation, the Service of the Word, and the Service of Holy Communion. The minister begins with an invocation of the Trinity: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”585 By indicating that all that he says is done in God’s name, the minister announces the presence of Jesus Christ, whose grace will be offered over the course of the ritual.586 From there, the service proceeds to the confession of sins, in which all present admit their complete depravity: “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess to You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment.”587 Following the confession, the minister stands before the congregation and says:

“Upon this your confession, I, by virtue of my office as a called and ordained servant of the

Word, announce the grace of God to all of you, and in the stead and by the command of our Lord

Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

Spirit.”588 By absolving the congregants of their sins, the minister is proclaiming the objective

584 For broad surveys on the Divine Service, see James L. Brauer, Worship, Gottesdienst, Cultus: What the Lutheran Confessions Say About Worship (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005); Just; Paul H. D. Lang, Ceremony and Celebration (Fort Wayne, IN: Emmanuel Press, 2012); and Fred L. Precht, ed., Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1993). 585 The following description describes the Common Service, which was devised in the nineteenth century by American Lutherans as an attempt to unite Lutherans through a common rite of the Divine Service. The prayers mentioned are from Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, 60-87. Ironically, different synods use different version of the Common Service. Concerning the Common Service, see Paul J. Grime, “The Common Service in : The Enduring Influence of ,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 89, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 9-24, and Luther D. Reed, The Lutheran Liturgy: A Study of the Common Service of the Lutheran Church in America (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1947), 182-204. 586 Just, 184-185. 587 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, 61. 588 Ibid., 61. 203 fact of their forgiveness through the atoning blood of Jesus. As the minister, he is called to publicly administer absolution, though this is something that any baptized Christian can do through the priesthood of all believers. From there, the Divine Service follows the historic order of the liturgy shared by Catholics, Anglicans, and other liturgical churches. Following the Gloria

Patri, , , salutation, and , the Service of the Word proper begins with the reading of the first lesson, a psalm (often chanted using melodies found in the hymnal), the epistle reading, an “ verse,” and the gospel reading. The congregation then confesses the Nicene Creed and sings the sermon or “chief hymn,” which is tightly connected with the theme of the sermon and the day within the church calendar. The sermon is followed by the and the prayers of the church, which are often presented in a call-and-response manner. This ends the Service of the Word.

When celebrated, the Service of Holy Communion continues the dialogue. After acknowledging God’s presence and offering thanksgiving in the preface, the (“Holy, holy, holy”) is sung by the congregations. In the Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s version of the

Common Service, the minister presents an exhortation to the congregation, inviting those who believe in the real presence of Christ’s body and blood and in its forgiving power to commune at the church. Though it is not in the liturgy, frequently pastors will use this opportunity to mention the parish’s closed communion practice, which restricts participation in the Lord’s Supper to those who are members of the congregation or are in fellowship with the parish through their synodical affiliation. Following the Lord’s Prayer, the (“This is my body…” and “This is my blood…”) are spoken by the pastor. In contrast to Catholic Mass and Anglican

Holy Eucharist, the canon is eliminated from the liturgy, as per Luther’s sixteenth century

204 liturgical reforms.589 The is then sung by the congregation, and then ushers invite members to the altar in “tables.” The words of distribution, “Take and eat, this is the true body of

Christ, given for you” and “Take and eat, this is the true blood of the New Testament, shed for you” emphasize both the Lutheran belief in Christ’s real presence in the sacrament as well as the personal nature of the grace dispensed through it.590 After the minister has finished administering the sacrament, the congregation, echoing the words of following his encounter with the

Christ child in Luke’s gospel, sings the (“Lord, now You let Your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen Your salvation…”). The minister closes the Divine Service by pronouncing God’s blessing on the congregation through the Aaronic blessing, which is followed by the closing hymn. Music fills the entire Divine Service, as hymns are generously interspersed throughout the liturgy. Additionally, many of the liturgical prayers are chanted or sung, though the degree to which this occurs is left at the discretion of the minister and congregation.

Passivity is at the heart of the Divine Service, as the name hints. Lutheran theology teaches that God, not man, is acting through the liturgy. Contrary to the impulses of the twentieth century liturgical movement, the liturgy is not the act of the people.591 According to Missouri

Synod pastor Timothy C. J. Quill, “The is the work of the Divine One. It is God serving his people who have been gathered to receive his gifts…. God does not come to be entertained by wretched sinners. He comes to forgive, save, comfort, and strengthen them. The

589 Just, 248-257. 590 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, 81. 591 Dom Gregory Dix, perhaps the most influential scholar associated with the liturgical movement, argued in The Shape of the Liturgy (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 1945) that the liturgy, and particularly the Eucharist, was the act of the Church. Luther D. Reed, who’s The Lutheran Liturgy: A Study of the Common Liturgy of the Lutheran Church in America remains the most thorough study of Lutheran liturgics, concurred: “The liturgy is more than a literary composition. It is a sacred action in response to our Lord’s injunction” (Reed, 239). 205 church is neither a theater nor a democratic party meeting. It is the court room of the King.”592

As with most things in Lutheran theology, the heart of this interpretation rests upon the doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace. According to Lutherans, humans play no part in earning their salvation. Rather, their justification is solely the result of God’s grace. God does not take the first step; he takes every step. Therefore, a correct understanding of worship must act in the same manner. Missouri Synod theologian Arthur A. Just, Jr., wrote that “The supreme expression of justification is in the liturgy. If our liturgies are to be Lutheran, they must be understood in the context of justification….”593 Just as one cannot contribute anything to one’s salvation, one cannot contribute to the blessings one receives through the Divine Service. “By faith, one speaks of the passive act of standing in the presence of God and receiving His gifts through the justifying act of Christ’s presence. We bring nothing to the liturgy; we simply respond in Spirit-produced faith to God’s gift of salvation. This is God’s liturgy, His act, His expression of who He is and what He has done for the world in Christ, and we are incorporated by Him into His liturgy.”594 Human action is precluded from the celebration of the Divine

Service.

Since the Divine Service is a divine action, confessional Lutheran theology deems it timeless. The service marks the “boundary between heaven and earth” and is “the appointed place where the now of our lives today comes together with the not yet of heaven to come in the bodily presence of Christ.”595 It is an eschatological event that sunders the barriers between temporality and eternity and gives believers a glimpse of heavenly blessings. This is the case

592 Quill, 116. 593 Just, 23. 594 Ibid., 24. 595 Ibid., 40. 206 because of the ritual’s relationship with the Word. The Word is active and creative.596 God operates through the liturgy not because he inspired the rite but rather because it reflects true doctrine, which, as discussed in Chapter One, is unchanging and is derived from God’s Word.

Operating on the principle of lex orandi, lex credenda (the law of worshipping is the law of believing), the liturgy communicates divine truth to believers. As Just writes, “if we want right teaching…to be a leaven in our churches, then right worship…must prevail and help to form true doctrine.”597 As Hermann Sasse succinctly noted, “the liturgy is dogma prayed.”598 Therefore, as one should not fiddle with doctrine, one should be careful when modifying the liturgy, because changes in liturgy often reflect or cause changes in doctrine. Moreover, there is little reason to radically innovate liturgically. If Lutheran doctrine is , then the liturgy that reflects that doctrine is likewise universal.

The Divine Service rises above cultural context through the Word. Just argues that “The liturgical structures of Word and Sacrament transcend all cultures and create our Lutheran theology of worship.”599 The liturgy provides a “cultural language that reflects the values and structures of Scripture” and thus shapes its participants accordingly. Moreover, submission to the liturgy removes emphasis from the individual: “The Church’s liturgy is a humble expression and demonstration of the nature of the Kingdom [of God]. No matter how difficult our hymns, how untrained our organist, how weak our singing, God is present in our liturgy, offering His gifts of salvation. We dare not be seduced into thinking that the Kingdom comes by our own relevant

596 This reflects a pre-Enlightenment theology of the power of words and sound to create. See Leigh Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), and Stephen H. Webb, The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004). 597 Ibid., 28. 598 Sasse, Letters, 1:460. 599 Just, 29. 207 production and performance.”600 The combination of potential negatives that Just provides is noteworthy. With few exceptions, congregations cannot control poor singing or instrumental accompaniment. However, Lutheran hymnody, as will be discussed later in this chapter, is unique, culturally resultant from the faith’s primarily German and Scandinavian roots, and thus unfamiliar to the ears of most twenty-first century American Christians. Lutheran hymnody is a variable that can be controlled. However, for Just, it is non-negotiable because of the hymns’ theological orthodoxy. Since the hymns proclaim the Word of God and thus teach timeless, universal truths, they are transcultural, regardless of their German or Scandinavian origins.

If the Divine Service is timeless, it is not only because God works through it but because he speaks through the minister and the musician as they proclaim the Word. The minister’s words are performative speech acts, since they “create what they say.”601 Jesus is not silent in the liturgy. Rather, the minister speaks on Christ’s behalf and thus “brings Christ’s gifts” to the congregants.602 The words are efficacious “not because of the pastor’s compelling personality or character but by virtue of the office that he holds as a called and ordained servant of the

Word.”603 Therefore, when the pastor grants the congregation absolution following their collective confession, “The pastor’s words actually forgive sins as if it were Christ Himself forgiving sins.”604 Similarly, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are valid because of the pastor’s application of biblical phrases which mysteriously communicate forgiveness to participants. The Word, rather than charisma or emotional experience, is perceived as transformative.

600 Ibid., 29. 601 Ibid., 87. 602 Ibid., 88. 603 Ibid., 88. 604 Ibid., 88. 208 Music likewise gains its power neither through popularity or experience but through its ability to communicate the Word. , a Missouri Synod church musician and professor at Concordia University-Chicago, claimed that “Music participates in the proclamation of the

Word. It faithfully reflects the honesty, integrity, and truthfulness of the Gospel message itself.”605 Since, according to Schalk, good church music communicates the gospel, it also “is part of the ministry of the Word. Whether one speaks from the pulpit, choir loft, or organ bench, whether the Gospel is being proclaimed in word or tone, it is always the same Gospel that we speak with faithfulness and hear with contrite and trusting hearts.”606 By emphasizing the importance of music in the Divine Service, Schalk elevates the status of the church musician.

Though he or she is not preaching the sermon or administering the sacraments, the musician cooperates with the minister in proclaiming the Word. Schalk goes so far to label the church musician as a “steward of the mysteries” of the Church due to his or her pivotal role in the

Divine Service.607 This is because “music in the liturgy is the living voice of the Gospel bound to the Word, proclaiming the Gospel to the Church and the world.”608 In the Divine Service, “music and the Word stand not in a hierarchical relationship, but in a reciprocal relationship, ‘next to,’ side by side, the Word providing the substance, the music giving life to the words in a way that by themselves they cannot do.”609 Music stands alongside the sermon and the liturgical prayers as a vehicle for God’s grace. Thus, from a confessional Lutheran perspective, even hymns composed by people (as opposed to divinely inspired ) transcend the temporal limits of time and culture through their proclamation of the Word in the Divine Service.

605 Carl Schalk, Singing the Church’s Song: Essays and Occasional Writings on Church Music (Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2015), 30. 606 Ibid., 30. 607 Ibid., 99. 608 Ibid., 139. 609 Ibid., 140. 209 Aside from the sermon, nowhere in the Divine Service is the Word and its objectivity more visible than in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.610 According to Lutheran theology, the sacraments are not rituals that symbolize past acts of God or future events. As

Missouri Synod pastor Daniel Preus wrote, “The sacraments are not prescribed works of piety that Christians are to perform for God or two more commandments added to the second table of the Law.” They are not human actions or responsibilities. Rather, “The sacraments are grace. The sacraments are the Gospel. The sacraments are forgiveness given, salvation, and life. They are not what we do for Jesus; they are what Jesus does for us.”611 Kurt E. Marquart, a former professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, defined sacraments as

“God-given actions in which the promise of forgiveness and salvation is attached to outward elements like water, bread, or wine.”612 As means of grace, the sacraments are divinely ordained rituals through which Christ’s forgiveness is dispensed. According to Luther’s Small Catechism,

“Baptism effects forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, just as the words and promises of God declares.”613 Similarly, the Lord’s Supper, which “is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine,” communicates “the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.”614 To give a sense of the sacraments’ importance, Kurt E. Marquart, a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in

610 Concerning Lutheran sacramental theology, see Martin Chemnitz, Ministry, Word and Sacraments: An Enchiridion; The Lord’s Supper; The Lord’s Prayer, trans. Luther Poellot, J. A. O. Preus, and George Williams, Chemnitz’s Works, vol. 5 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007); Johann Gerhard, A Comprehensive Explanation of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (1610), trans. Elmer Hohle (Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 1996); David P. Scaer, Baptism, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, vol. 11 (St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 1999); and John R. Stephenson, The Lord’s Supper, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, vol. 12 (St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2003). 611 Daniel Preus, Why I am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), 108. 612 Kurt E. Marquart, The Saving Truth: Doctrine for Laypeople, Truth, Salvatory and Churchly: The Works of Kurt E. Marquart, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Luther Academy, 2016), 87. 613 An Explanation of Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, 21. 614 Ibid., 24. For a fuller discussion of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, see Hermann Sasse, This is my body: Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959). 210 Fort Wayne, Indiana, wrote that “Every baptized baby is a greater miracle than Lazarus raised from the dead…. Lazarus received only physical life and had to die again. Baptism, however, bestows eternal, spiritual life. Again, those who receive the Sacrament of the Altar take part in a wonder far greater than that of Cana, with its miraculous wine…or that of the miraculous feedings….”615 In Lutheran theology, the sacraments are life-giving by granting the child or communicants the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross apart from any worthiness or action on the part of humans.

The efficaciousness of the sacraments does not depend upon the orthodoxy or holiness of the presiding cleric nor upon magic.616 The sacraments provide forgiveness through the power of the Word. Luther writes that “it is not the water that does these things [communicates forgiveness], but the Word of God which is in and with the water, and faith which trusts this

Word of God in the water. For without the Word of God the water is simply water, and no baptism; but with the Word of God it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit….”617 Similarly, the biblical words of institution, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” are what causes the true body and to be present alongside the bread and wine. Divorced of human interference, the Word is viewed as the all- powerful substance that God uses to create faith and to connect believers to Christ’s death and resurrection, both of which, of course, confessional Lutherans believe were historical events.

Therefore, locating the power of the sacraments in their relationship with the Word of God grants them complete objectivity by removing any traces of human subjectivity. Anything else would be quickly condemned as a form of works-righteousness.

615 Ibid., 85. 616 This point was central to C. F. W. Walther’s conception of the church following Stephan’s from the Saxon confessionalist community in Perry County, Missouri. 617 An Explanation of Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, 21. 211 The confessional Lutheran disavowal of subjectivity is clearest in their theology justifying infant baptism. Believing that Jesus’s commandment that his disciples go to “all nations” and baptize them applies to “all,” Lutherans argue that infant baptism is a biblical practice. Moreover, refusing to baptize an infant is akin to child abuse. Kurt Marquart pondered

“why should babies be denied its [baptism’s] heavenly benefits?” and could not find a good reason.618 He quipped that “Parents who glibly talk of waiting until ‘the child is old enough to make up his own mind’ should consider this: What would be the disastrous results of not feeding a baby till he can read a menu and ‘choose for himself’?”619 The infant, of course, cannot decide to get baptized, but that does not matter, since no one can choose to believe in Christ. Dead people cannot lack agency, and humans, unless resuscitated by the Word, are spiritually dead.

Marquart writes: “The unbelieving sinner, dead is trespasses and sins, can no more ‘make a decision for Jesus’ or decide to ‘co-operate with the Holy Spirit’ in conversion than could the dead Lazarus wish himself alive after carefully considering the pros and cons.”620 Confessional

Lutherans do not recognize a spiritual difference between children and adults lacking faith, as

Hermann Sasse recognized in a 1949 circular letter: “We baptize children as if they were adults, just as we baptize adults as if they were children. Whatever the difference between adults and children may mean for us humans and our judgment of a person, it means nothing for God.

Before Him a person is a person, either a child of Adam or a child of God, regardless of age.”621

Therefore, both adults and newborn infants share a similar status before God and lack the ability to choose him.

618 Marquart, 94. 619 Ibid., 95. 620 Ibid., 86. 621 Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors, 1:65. 212 Faith is created through an encounter with the Word. For an adult, often that occurs when one hears a sermon or reads the Bible.622 For an infant, who is cognitively incapable of understanding a sermon or biblical text, faith is given through baptism. According to confessional Lutheran theology, babies are equally capable of faith as adult converts. To this end, the liturgy of baptism uses the same post-baptismal prayer for both adults and infants:

“Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has given you the new birth of water and of the Spirit, and has forgiven you all your sins, strengthen you with His grace unto life everlasting. Amen.”623 Denying infants the ability to have faith would imply that faith rests on one’s cognitive ability to accept Christ, which “puts the burden of salvation on man and his own works.”624 Infants do not accept Christ any more than anybody else does. However, “While an infant cannot ‘accept’ the Lord, an infant can receive him!”625 Over time, as the child matures, the faith likewise ought to grow through exposure to the Word by the parents and the child’s church. Missouri Synod New Testament scholar A. Andrew Das writes that “the infant’s baptismal faith must become a conscious faith.”626 That is the point of confirmation.627

Regardless, faith for the confessional Lutheran is entirely passive: “Baptism is God’s giving means, while faith is our taking means.”628 There is no room for human choice, or else salvation could be earned by cognitive action.

622 David P. Scaer, Law and Gospel and the Means of Grace, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, vol. 8 (St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2008), 113-115. 623 Handbook of Ministerial Acts: Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Mankato: MN: Board of Publications, 1999), 5, 11. 624 A. Andrew Das, Baptized into God’s Family: The Doctrine of Infant Baptism for Today (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1991), 29. 625 Ibid., 32 (emphasis in the original). 626 Ibid., 43 (emphasis in the original). 627 David A. Scaer writes that “Baptized candidates for confirmation already have the Spirit, but during this rite His presence is confirmed generally at a transition period of life which is filled with uncertainties” (Scaer, 175). 628 Marquart, 98. 213 Faith’s passive nature also prevents any credit from being given to human experience.

Marquart admits that the adult convert seem to make a decision, since he or she consents to baptism and membership in the church, but such an experience is illusory since “it is only a sign that we were already alive through the Gospel.”629 Relying upon experience again transforms conversion into a human work, which violates the doctrine of justification by faith through grace and also adds uncertainty. If the convert’s faith rests upon experience, then the conversion is constantly open to question since it rests upon feelings rather than facts. The genuineness and efficaciousness of the person’s emotions is uncertain because emotions vacillate. Confessional

Lutheran theology refused to grant any degree of certainty to emotions or human subjectivity.

Therefore, if assurance is possible, it can only be found in an objective, nonhuman source – the

Word. In the case of conversion, the Word’s visible locus is in baptism. Marquart identified baptism as “the anchor or reference point for our entry into Christ.”630 Since the promises given to the infant, namely the forgiveness of sins and new birth, are rooted in the Word, baptism is an event in which Christ “gives Himself in concrete words and acts of promise.”631 Therefore, because of the assurances of God’s promises found in the visible sacrament of baptism, “faith looks back to baptism as its source, and not to various emotional experiences.”632 Luther provides an example of this. One of the favorite Luther tales that confessional Lutheran pastors share concerns doubt and the uncertainty that emotion provides. According to the story, when

Luther’s depression would overwhelm him, he would seek comfort in words scrawled in chalk above his desk: baptizatus sum (“I have been baptized”).633 Because baptism is a concrete event

629 Ibid., 86. 630 Ibid., 97. 631 Ibid., 97. 632 Ibid., 97. 633 One iteration of this story is found in Carl E. Braaten, Because of Christ: Memoirs of a Lutheran Pastor- Theologian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 11. 214 in which the objective Word proclaims one’s forgiveness, the sacrament negates the value of emotional subjectivity.

Confessional Lutherans identify emotion and subjectivity with doubt and uncertainty.

Therefore, there is no place for them within the context of Lutheran worship. The theology that confessional Lutherans have constructed around the Divine Service gains a veneer of objectivity through its connection to the Word. Since the service is an event through which heaven comes down to earth and God serves his people with grace, the human element nearly disappears. While the minister writes the sermon, he proclaims the Word, and thus God speaks through him.

Likewise, God works through him as he pronounces absolution upon the congregation, baptizes a child, or consecrates the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, because the Divine Service mediates the Word to worshippers, it is perceived as transcending the limitations of time, space, and culture. The

Divine Service is timeless because the truths it proclaims, derives from scripture, are eternal. As

Sasse wrote, “the liturgy is dogma prayed.” Therefore, confessional Lutheran theology grants little role for human agency or emotion in worship. Otherwise, there would be no blessed assurance for the Lutheran soul.

“Comfort, Comfort, Ye My People”: Confessional Lutheran Critiques of American

Evangelical Worship

Since the Divine Service is the rite through which God provides grace to his people through his established means, contradicting the Divine Service and the theology supporting it is equivalent to challenging God’s truth and corrupting the gospel. Worship thus provides an area in which confessional Lutherans draw a sharp distinction between themselves and American evangelicals. Indeed, recognizing that their worship practices and theology diverge from the

215 majority of religiously conservative Protestants in the United States, confessional Lutherans describe their theology of worship by defining it against evangelical worship practices and experiences. While numerous critiques are leveled against evangelicals, the primary criticisms revolve around issues of emotion and objectivity versus subjectivity. While evangelical worship, the argument goes, is focuses on “me” and constructs a house of sand resting upon a foundation of emotion, the Divine Service stands firmly upon the promises of God objectively communicated through the Word.

Evangelicals’ focus on emotional experiences creates two problems. First, since emotions, from a confessional Lutheran perspective, are entirely subjective, they are unreliable and throw an individual into a pit of despair, doubt, and uncertainty. This results from a false understanding of the Law which transforms worship into an obligation that one must perform or a litmus test by which one can test one’s relationship with God. Second, emotions leave no room for doctrine. Since one bases the validity of one’s religious experiences on feelings, doctrine is ignored in favor of one’s own judgment. As a result, the clarity of God’s Word is denied, since one’s emotions trump biblical precepts. This is most clear in evangelicalism’s rejection of the sacraments, which confessional Lutherans point to as the clearest (and most dangerous) sign of evangelical deviance from the gospel. The practice of closed communion, in which confessional

Lutheran churches restrict participation in the Lord’s Supper to members of the congregation or its synod, presents a point of contrast and conflict between confessional Lutherans and evangelicals. Worship and emotion thus service as key areas through which confessional

Lutherans demarcate boundaries against similarly conservative evangelicals.

The negative definition of confessional Lutheran emotionology in relation to evangelicalism is found in pastoral critiques of American Christianity, a popular and seemingly

216 perpetual genre of confessional Lutheran literature. As previous chapters have made clear, there is a longstanding suspicion of American Protestantism on the part of conservative Lutherans that dates to their arrival in North America. C. F. W. Walther, for example, spilled ample ink decrying the evils of nineteenth century Methodists and other evangelicals as he defined and defended his conception of the Lutheran Zion. Anti-evangelical polemics have continued as a proud Lutheran tradition. While such bromides are found throughout denomination periodicals, sermons, pamphlets, and books, this section will focus on two books that best exemplify twenty- first confessional Lutheran anti-evangelicalism. Bryan Wolfmueller’s Has American Christianity

Failed Us?, published in 2016, explains Lutheran doctrine by comparing it to evangelicalism.

Written in popular language and formatted to appeal to lay readers (for instance, it uses different text sizes and fonts to draw readers eyes to different key phrases), Wolfmueller, a Missouri

Synod pastor in Aurora, Colorado, and a convert from evangelicalism, constructed the work as an extended critique of evangelical emotionology. The second major anti-evangelical work is

The Fire and the Staff: Lutheran Theology in Practice by Klemet I. Preus. Preus was a member of an influential family which has included Missouri Synod seminary and synodical presidents that spearheaded the denomination’s rightward turn in the 1970s, and he served as a pastor at various parishes in the Upper Midwest until his death from cancer in 2014. While Preus’s book is witty and does its best to avoid Latinate theological terminology, the length (443 pages of text) and breadth likely restricted the reading audience to Lutheran pastors. While Wolfmueller attacked evangelicalism broadly, Preus aimed specifically at the Church Growth Movement, which emphasized “seeker friendly” church marketing strategies in order to increase church membership. Focusing on worship and emotion, both Wolfemueller and Preus condemn evangelicalism for their improper understanding of emotion and define Lutheran doctrine and

217 practice against contemporary evangelicalism, which they believe is contrary to the Christian gospel.

Bryan Wolfmueller refused to pull any punches in his Has American Christianity

Failed?634 The answer to the title’s question was a resounding “Yes!” Wolfmueller’s jeremiad is one of a long tradition of twentieth and twenty-first century books decrying the state of

American religion. Various authors have identified sundry sources, from nonchalance concerning heresy to “moral therapeutic ” to anti-intellectualism to simply “bad religion,” for the perceived malaise infecting American Christianity.635 For confessional Lutherans, though, the culprit is a suspect that encompasses “all of the above” – American evangelicalism. The decay of

American Christianity is internal, and American Christians do not notice it because, according to

Wolfmueller, they have gone “nose-blind” to the stench.636 Thinking of American Christianity as normative, adherents are incapable of recognizing the theological peculiarities of their environment and the inherent threats of its anti-Christian deviations from the gospel. According to Wolfmueller, “American Christianity teaches the centrality of the individual, my will, my experiences, my decision, my heart, my work and dedication – to the detriment of Christ and His saving and comforting work. American Christianity most often preaches the Christian instead of

Christ, and our senses are so dulled that we don’t even notice He’s missing.”637 American

Christianity, which Wolfmueller identifies with evangelicalism (liberal Protestants are largely absent in his book), is egocentric and anthropocentric, focusing on humans rather than God. This

634 Bryan Wolfmueller, Has American Christianity Failed? (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016). 635 For examples of this literature, see Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (New York: Free Press, 2013); Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005); Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); and David F. Wells, No Place for Truth: or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994). 636 Wolfmueller, 7. 637 Ibid., 8. 218 is the fruit of American Christianity’s sources: revivalism, pietism, mysticism, and – C. F. W.

Walther’s favorite word – enthusiasm.638 These are the “four rivers that water the errors of

American Christianity.”639 With such a poisonous source, it is no wonder that the water is contaminated.

Central to Wolfmueller’s critique of American Christianity, or evangelicalism, is his charge that it is inherently focused on “me” rather than God. The “four rivers” illustrate this.

Since revivalism presumes that one can choose Christ, “salvation is only a potential” that awaits actualization through an individual’s decision. As Wolfmueller writes, “The decision is key. Our will activates God’s grace. It all begins with me.”640 Pietism likewise is egocentric by searching for the fruits of salvation – works – and viewing them as a gauge of one’s salvation.641

Mysticism reduces faith to experience and feeling, as best witnessed by evangelical worship

“experiences” which, if done right, make saved individuals “feel the Spirit.” The problem with mysticism is that it “looks for comfort in the internal experience of the direct touch of God,” which is something that God “never promised.”642 Finally, enthusiasm influences American

Christianity by “locat[ing] God’s gracious and saving activity inside of us. All spiritual activity occurs in the heart.”643 By favoring the internal, evangelicals refuse to acknowledge God’s saving activity in the external and thus dismiss sacraments in favor of experience. Therefore, evangelicalism, for confessional Lutheranism, is criticized as an essentially egocentric religion focusing on internal experience. As Missouri Synod pastor Klemet I. Preus charged in his 2004 critique of evangelicalism, The Fire and the Staff, while discussing Christian contemporary

638 Ibid., 9. 639 Ibid., 11. 640 Ibid., 13. 641 Ibid., 15-17. 642 Ibid., 19. 643 Ibid., 20. 219 music, “these songs promote such self-centeredness by focusing endlessly on me, my feelings, my gifts, my sacrifice, my, my, my.”644

Focusing on the self, naturally, from the confessional Lutheran perspective, results in a religion that places all of its emphasis on experience. That is dangerous, according to

Wolfmueller, who declared that “If you live by the experience, you will die by the experience.”645 The language of death is not hyperbole. Rather, confessional Lutherans believe that reliance upon subjective religion risks spiritual death. Emotions are deadly uncertain.

According to Wolfmueller, “Trusting a secret part of your insides that says God is close also means trusting that secret part of your insides that says God is far away.”646 Emotions are fleeting, and therefore one ought not to rely upon emotion. They create a “certainty void,” since

“If God is working only on the inside, then any confidence in the Lord is bound up to my subjective experience. If God brings blessings only to my heart, then my confidence in those blessings is bound to my feelings.”647 This is evangelicalism’s grave danger, and it is more expressly found in its approach to worship.

An evangelical church service is often described as a “worship experience,” and its efficacy is based upon its ability to manipulate an individual into feeling the presence of the Holy

Spirit. Wolfmueller humorously refers to the “Holy Spirit goosebumps” that he used to anticipate at evangelical worship gatherings.648 The experiential nature of evangelical worship is derived from two fundamental evangelical teachings. First, worship is approached as something that one does. Whether one worships in order to please God, thank him, or be close to him, worship is an

644 Preus, The Fire and the Staff, 149. 645 Wolfmueller, 19. 646 Ibid., 19. 647 Ibid., 119. 648 Ibid., 176. 220 action or a work. As one moves closer to God, one expects to feel that nearness. The emphasis is on human action coaxing God’s love. Second, as mentioned earlier, evangelicalism dismisses the idea that God works from external means but rather believes that God solely works internally.

Evangelicalism is anti-sacramental, which, from the confessional Lutheran perspective, is its most insidious attribute, since “refusing to see blessing and grace outside of ourselves…creates a void of certainty and confidence.”649

By accusing evangelicals of emotional subjectivity, confessional Lutherans like

Wolfmueller reveal how they construct their own concepts of correct emotions. Wolfmueller and

Preus do not deny that emotion is at the center of Lutheran worship. According to Wolfmueller, the question that drives Lutheran theology is “Where’s the comfort?”650 Emotion itself is not the evil of evangelicalism. Rather, it is subjectivity. Since subjectivity is identified with uncertainty, certainty and comfort are lacking there. Objectivity thus becomes the safe haven for troubled souls. Klemet Preus makes this point through a humorous story concerning, stereotypically for a

Lutheran pastor, beer. Recounting a ten mile August hike through the California desert in which he forgot his water, Preus described his parched, thirsty state. Once he returned to his car, he sped to the nearest bar (“no rural Lutheran pastor has ever driven so fast”) and ordered a beer.651

As Preus put it, “Beer is objective. It has value and power apart from me. Drinking is subjective.

It’s the way I get the beer.”652 In the midst of his hops-induced euphoria, Preus did not focus on his thirst (“How thankful I am for my subjective assimilation of this draught”). Rather, “I thought about the beer. Beer alone occupied my thoughts. Cold, wet, objective beer.”653 Preus

649 Ibid., 119. 650 Ibid., 115. 651 Preus, The Fire and the Staff, 70. 652 Ibid., 70. 653 Ibid., 70. 221 relates this to faith in that the “thirsty” sinner desperately needs God’s grace, and so it is beyond foolish for him or her to find comfort in the subjective experience of receiving it. Faith is the passive medium through which salvation is received. Therefore, one does not focus on the medium but rather the source – “the blessings of God found in the life and death of Jesus. You think about objective absolution, objective justification, and the objective Word. Objective is foundational and certain.”654 Comfort is found in God and his promises.

Certainty is found in God’s Word and the external sacraments it creates. Lutheran worship, in contrast to evangelical worship, relies upon external means of grace which are experienced as objective rather than subjective. As Preus writes, “Liturgy is directed from God to us through us…. God has given to us the gifts of His Gospel and Sacraments that are distributed through ceremonies or rituals.”655 Wolfmueller echoes this, locating the Word as the central aspect of the Divine Service. The deficiency in American results from an anemic understanding of the Word. According to Wolfmueller, evangelicalism “recognizes

Scripture as the Word of God, but it fails to recognize the power and authority of God’s

Word.”656 While he praised evangelicals for confessing the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible, theses doctrines, in and of themselves, are insufficient.657 For evangelicalism, “God’s Word teaches and informs, but it does not enliven or forgive.”658 The

Bible is not an inerrant self-help book, as the phrase “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” indicates.659 Rather, the Word is creative. That is the heart of its efficaciousness – a point missed

654 Ibid., 70. 655 Ibid., 165. 656 Wolfmueller, 39. 657 Ibid., 40-43. 658 Ibid., 39. 659 Ibid., 48. 222 by evangelicals. Just as God created the universe ex nihilo in the opening chapters of Genesis through his words, so does the Word create faith and salvation in humans ex nihilo.660

The Word’s creativity exhibits itself through external means, such as the sacraments. It prevents the liturgy from being “mumbo-jumbo,” as Wolfmueller saw it when he was an evangelical.661 The Word creates a forgiven sinner through Absolution, converts an infant in baptism (“‘Believer’s Baptism’ and ‘Infant Baptism’ are not exclusive categories”), and makes

Christ’s body and blood present in the Lord’s Supper. Since the Word transmits God’s promises and concretizes them through external means, confessional Lutherans believe that comfort can be found in them. Rather than focusing on emotions, confessional Lutherans believe that they focus on a divine reality that supersedes their experience and grounds it in eternal truth. Human feeling leads to doubt, while pronouncements of forgiveness in the Divine Service reveal one’s actual status before God. As Wolfmueller writes, through the Divine Service Jesus “establishes the worship of His Church so that He can deliver to us what we need.”662 Therefore, there is no need to emotionally manipulate a worshipper in order to induce “Holy Spirit goosebumps.” Preus is blunt: “Christianity is not supposed to be exciting. The word exciting does not occur in the

Bible…. God ‘places Himself in a box’ so we can know where to find Him. The Gospel is not supposed to be ‘fun’ or ‘dramatic.’ It is consoling, comforting, saving, powerful, clear, and utterly predictable.”663 While the realization of the grace communicated through the means of grace should inspire emotion, emotion “cannot be a barometer for faith.”664

660 Ibid., 47. 661 Ibid., 109. 662 Ibid., 178. 663 Preus, The Fire and the Staff, 254 (emphasis in original). 664 Ibid., 254. 223 Evangelical worship’s emphasis on experience not only drives a Christian into despair, but it denudes Christianity of its doctrinal content. By relying upon experience, Wolfmueller argues, one denies that the Word is sufficient and clear. Rather, one needs “an inner illumination of the Holy Spirit” in order to understand the Bible or know God.665 Since everyone’s experiences are disparate and contradictory, evangelicals necessarily have to accept a “lowest common denominator” version of Christianity that denies the importance of doctrinal disagreements. Wolfmueller equates disclaiming a denominational identity with saying, “I don’t think we can know with certainty whose teaching is correct.”666 Therefore, evangelical “worship experiences” communicate theological ambivalence. Klemet Preus traces this to nineteenth century revivalism, which favored excitement and believed that the Holy Spirit acted

“unpredictably” through “new means.”667 “The churches of the new frontier preferred intense inner feelings to creeds and sacraments,” and thus they were indifferent to doctrine.668 For both

Wolfmueller and Preus, preoccupation with subjective emotions annihilates theology.

In contrast, the confessional Lutheran authors portray doctrine as central to Lutheran worship. Doctrine is not simply abstract theological statements or points on a statement of belief.

Preus recounts an encounter between his father, also a pastor, and a Norwegian Lutheran woman in Minnesota’s Northwoods. Asking why she spent so much time reading the Bible and studying

Lutheran theological texts, she responded “Lehre er liv” (“Doctrine is life”).669 Wolfmueller agrees, noting that “Our doctrine is our salvation.”670 If the Divine Service is “dogma prayed,” as

Sasse claimed, then proper worship mediates doctrine to congregants. It matters which church

665 Wolfmueller, 44. 666 Ibid., 44. 667 Preus, The Fire and the Staff, 255. 668 Ibid., 247. 669 Ibid., 23. 670 Wolfmueller, 51. 224 one attends, because one needs pure doctrine. “Church shopping,” therefore, based upon positive emotional experiences (i.e., “feeling the Spirit”) or worship styles alone is highly discouraged.

Such denominational laxity is indicative of evangelicalism’s lax approaches to worship. “To flit from church to church without thinking about what the church teaches,” according to Preus, “is a denial of Christ.”671 For him, “denominational disloyalty is a sin,” since it signifies that one does care about truth but solely experience. Condemning those who choose churches based upon whether or not the pastor is a good preacher, Preus writes, “The Bible teaches us to evaluate sermons not by our measure of their immediate affect but as to whether they teach Christ.”672

Pastors who attempt to grow their congregations through entertaining, exhortational preaching,

“spoil people” like giving candy to a begging child.673 Preus warns pastors that “if the people

‘enjoy’ the sermon because it moves them or entertains them, then their hearing will be tuned to

‘delight’ rather than to the light of the Gospel.”674 Nothing should separate worship from doctrine, because doctrine is divine truth and saves. Evangelicalism’s weakness is its inability to understand this, since emotion trumps all.

Preus and Wolfmueller see evangelicalism’s anti-doctrinal attitude on full display in its approach to the Lord’s Supper. Since God works internally rather than through external means, evangelicals, for the most part, deny Christ’s sacramental presence in the Lord’s Supper. The

“ordinance” (rather than a “sacrament”) commemorates Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. Therefore, evangelicals tend to practice open communion, in which anyone who wishes may partake of the elements. From a confessional Lutheran perspective, this is sacrilegious. As mentioned earlier,

Lutherans believe that Christ’s body and blood are truly present alongside the bread and wine.

671 Preus, The Fire and the Staff, 257. 672 Ibid., 348. 673 Ibid., 351. 674 Ibid., 351. 225 While all sinners need the grace present in the sacrament, pastors will only commune members of his congregation or members of a congregation belonging to a synod in fellowship with his congregation. The sacrament is guarded from those who do not accept pure doctrine. Ostensibly, this is a pastoral practice meant not to comfort individuals in their errors and prevent them from falling under the Apostle Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 11:27 that “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.” Additionally, the Lord’s Supper is understood as a moment of church unity through a common confession of faith. If one disagrees with Lutheran doctrine, then that common confession is absent. Therefore, confessional Lutherans practice “close” or

“closed” communion.675

Closed communion, for Preus and Wolfmueller, encapsulates the differences between evangelical and Lutheran worship (and the errors of evangelicalism). Closed communion presumes that “true doctrine is something the church can have and confess.”676 Emotion and experience is, again, irrelevant. Rather, doctrine can be gathered from the Word and codified in theological orthodoxy. Therefore, according to Preus, it is not too much to ask laypeople to be orthodox and unite with Lutherans on every point of doctrine. It is not enough to “agree to disagree” and claim unity in Christ. Rather, “doctrine is not plural but singular. We hold to one doctrine with many articles. If you deny one article of faith, you will end up questioning or denying all.”677 Doctrine is a package with no room for negotiation, and feelings have no role in determining truth. Closed communion presumes the reality of heterodoxy. Preus, like most confessional Lutheran pastors, goes to great pains to claim that by denying a fellow Christian

675 Concerning closed communion, see Stephenson, 149-165. 676 Ibid., 259. 677 Ibid., 266. 226 communion, the pastor is not condemning that person’s soul to hell. “Rather,” writes Preus, “it is the heterodox church that is condemned and rightly so.”678 The pastor in effect says, “Your church is heterodox. It is false. You are in spiritual danger in that church. I must caution you against that church. God wants you to hold to the true doctrine as taught by the Lutheran church.”679 From Preus’s perspective, the fact that confessional Lutherans guard the Lord’s

Supper so closely through closed communion demonstrates the reverence with which they treat

God’s means of grace, which are intricately connected to doctrine. The fact that evangelicals refuse to recognize this and are offended by the Lutheran practice illustrates their lackadaisical approach to doctrine and worship and that they “simply do not want to commit to a doctrine and to a commonly held confession of a church.”680 If they valued doctrine, they would understand.

Both Has American Christianity Failed? and The Fire and the Staff define confessional

Lutheranism against evangelicalism through worship practices and emotion. Preus and

Wolfmueller damn evangelicalism for the central role its givens to experiential religion. By locating true religion in the heart and in emotional experience, evangelicals deny the Word and

Sacraments, which is where, according to confessional Lutheranism, God has promised to dispense his grace. Since the means of grace derive their power through the Word, they are objective and sure. The Christian can gain comfort from them. This highlights emotion’s role within confessional Lutheranism. The tradition’s theology does not negate emotion. Rather, it is at the center of it. Preus and Wolfmueller’s central critique of evangelicalism is that it is incapable of providing Christians with true comfort from the nagging doubt and despair that confessional Lutheranism assumes all humans share. Subjective experience is deemed fickle and

678 Ibid., 268. 679 Ibid., 270. 680 Ibid., 274. 227 unreliable. Fortunately, Lutheranism provides the answer by focusing on external means which are objective because they do not derive their power from human emotions but rather from God’s creative Word. Additionally, it claims that truth is not only attainable but present in Lutheranism.

Indeed, Wolfmueller ends his book by pointing interested, non-Lutheran readers to the Book of

Concord, since “There is no other collection of documents, statements, or books that so clearly, accurately, and comfortingly presents the truths of God’s Word and reveals the biblical Gospel as does the Book of Concord.”681 Lutheranism’s confession of objective truth justifies its focus on the liturgy and arguably exclusionary worship practices. If American Christianity has failed,

Wolfmueller claims, Lutheranism has not, since it is distinct from American Christianity. Its separation from evangelicalism grants it the opportunity to offer comfort to despairing, doubting

Christians.

“Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?”: Hymnals as Reactions and Regulators

Contemporary confessional Lutheran hymnals provide an avenue through which

Wolfmueller and Preus’s critiques of American evangelical worship can be put into action.

Through hymnals, confessional Lutherans define their denominational identities with respect to the Lutheran tradition as well as evangelicalism. In particular, they use hymnals to inscribe their theology upon their worship practices. Hymnals are not simply songbooks. Rather, hymnals are reactions. First and foremost, they are a reaction to demand. If a hymnal’s first and foremost role is to be used in worship, it must be a commodity in demand by congregants. Therefore, hymnals are constructed with an eye towards worshippers in terms of formatting and the inclusion of popular songs. Therefore, hymnals inevitably bend to the desires of the congregants. However,

681 Wolfmueller, 250. 228 insofar as hymnals are not the product of the democratic process, they are constructed by committees (normally clergy or professors with a few laypeople) to edify, instruct, and train congregants. Hymnals are intended to mold congregants into orthodox true believers. Second, hymnals react against “outside” trends that seemingly infiltrate the church. Within confessional

Lutheranism, hymnals are official.682 They are organized, designed, and published by synods.

While there is some variation in the hymnals that congregations might use (i.e., some congregations may favor the old hymnal over the new one), congregations will nearly uniformly use their synod’s hymnal. Therefore, hymnals are organized with denominational identity in mind as they differentiate themselves from competitors. While aspects of these hymnals are aimed sometimes at other Lutherans, these hymnals primarily define their denominations and tradition against evangelicals. This becomes clear through examining the physical design of the hymnals, the materials included in the front matter, and texts selected for the hymns.

As of 2017, there are primarily three official hymnals that are used by confessional

Lutheran denominations.683 In 1993, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) published Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal. This was envisioned as a replacement for The

Lutheran Hymnal, which was a 1941 product of the Synodical Conference, which included both the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods. However, once the Missouri Synod produced a new

682 While in the early nineteenth century, Lutheran hymnals were the results of ministers’ individual efforts, by the late nineteenth century, Lutheran hymnals were produced by denominational church bodies. Carl Schalk discusses this shift in Schalk, God’s Song in a New Land, 121-181. This was a reverse of the manner of hymnal construction in early Lutheranism, which “formed from below” through enterprising laypeople (Brown, 14). 683 There are two additional hymnals that are also used, but they are older and have been largely supplanted by the three newer hymnals discussed in this chapter. First, The Lutheran Hymnal, published in 1941, was used across synodical lines in the confessional Lutheran community for nearly four decades, and some congregations continue to use it. Additionally, Lutheran Worship was published by the Missouri Synod in 1982 as a revision of the 1978 , which was the product of the American Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and the Lutheran Church in America. The Lutheran Book of Worship was deemed doctrinally suspect by the Missouri Synod, prompting their revision. While Lutheran Worship was largely replaced by the 2006 Lutheran Service Book, some congregations have retained it. Both The Lutheran Hymnal and the Lutheran Book of Worship remain officially approved by the Missouri Synod for congregational use. 229 hymnal, Lutheran Worship, in 1982, the WELS decided to create its own, which saw fruition after a ten year process.684 The hymnal’s 623 selections derived primarily from traditional

German Lutheran, twentieth century American Lutheran, and a variety of non-Lutheran

American sources (such as Southern folk tunes, Anglican melodies, and contemporary evangelical hymns). In 2008, the WELS provided 87 additional hymns through the Christian

Worship Supplement, which included additional traditional hymns but primarily introduced twentieth and twentieth-first hymnody from Lutheran and non-Lutheran sources. In response to

Christian Worship, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS), which is in fellowship with the

WELS, published the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary in 1996. The ELS, which is of Norwegian heritage, felt that Christian Worship ignored Scandinavian hymnody, included too many contemporary hymns, and disagreed with some aspects of the liturgies offered in the WELS hymnal.685 Therefore, the synod commissioned three ELS scholars to construct the new hymnal, which was understood as an attempt to combine the best of both The Lutheran Hymnal and The

Lutheran Hymnary, a 1913 hymnal used by many Scandinavian Lutheran churches in the Upper

Midwest.686 The end product relied primarily upon German and Scandinavian Lutheran hymnody as well as some American sources. Very few contemporary hymns were included. Finally, in

2006, the Missouri Synod published the Lutheran Service Book, which was intended to replace previous hymnals used by the synod.687 The hymnal’s 635 selections reflect a diverse array of hymns, though much of the hymnody, both old and new, reflects the synod’s German heritage.

684 Schalk, God’s Song in a New Land, 180-181. 685 Mark DeGarmeaux (co-editor of the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary), in discussion with the author, May 25, 2016. 686 Ibid. 687 Concerning the Lutheran Service Book, see Jon D. Vieker, “After Ten Years: Reflections on Lutheran Service Book,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 89, no. 3 (Fall 2016), 25-44. 230 Hymnals are confessional documents.688 Purity of doctrine is essential. Walther set the tone for confessional Lutheran hymnals with his 1847 Kirchengesangbuch für Evangelisch-

Lutherische Gemeinden ungeanderter Augsburgischer Confession. Introducing the new volume,

Walther wrote that “In the selection of the adopted hymns the chief consideration was that they be pure in doctrine [and] that they have found almost universal acceptance within the orthodox

German Lutheran Church and have thus received the almost universal testimony that they have come forth from the true spirit [of Lutheranism]….”689 Walther explicitly rejected the rationalist hymnals that the Saxons brought with them to Missouri and sought to reproduce the “old hymn books” that had not been tainted with heterodoxy.690 Since the sixteenth century, historian

Christopher Boyd Brown noted, Lutherans held that “hymns were a form of God’s Word, through which God himself was active to strengthen and comfort his people in faith,” purity was required. Otherwise, it would not be God’s Word. Therefore, hymnals, like the Confessions, must articulate Lutheran teaching.

Hymnals are barometers of orthodoxy. Unlike the Word and the Confessions, which judge one’s purity, hymnals are judged. A doctrinally anemic hymnal portends poorly for the synod which produced it. Therefore, it is important for synods that their hymnals reflect orthodoxy. When, in 1983, the Wisconsin Synod commissioned a committee to create a new hymnal, the first thing the synod convention charged the committee to do was to ensure that the hymnal “will be scripturally sound and edifying.”691 While Christian Worship’s introduction gives a brief nod to orthodoxy, the Lutheran Service Book is more explicit. Its introduction is a

688 D. G. Hart argues this point in “In the Shadow of Calvin and Watts: Twentieth-Century American Presbyterians and Their Hymnals,” in Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land, 92-121. Hart claims that the lack of theological precision in Presbyterian hymnals indicated the church’s latitudinarianism. 689 Quoted in Schalk, God’s Song in a New Land, 129. 690 Walther’s Hymnal: Church Hymnbook for Evangelical Lutheran Congregations of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, translated by Matthew Carver (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002), xii. 691 Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1993), 8. 231 theological treatise that paraphrased the Apostles’ Creed, listed nearly every major doctrine of

Lutheranism, and highlighted the importance of the Word and Sacraments in a Christian’s life.

Lutheran hymnody is described as “the wedding of the Word of God to melody.”692 The editors of the hymnal prayed “that it may be used in all its fullness to give voice to the prayer, praise, and thanksgiving of God’s holy people as they are graciously served by Him through Word and

Sacrament.”693 The Lutheran Service Book locates itself in salvation history as the means through which Missouri Synod Lutherans respond in thanksgiving to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and the grace received through the sacraments. It participates in the mystery of the Divine

Service in which terrestrial worship is joined “with the song of every saint from every age, the new song of Christ’s holy people.”694 If the Lutheran Service Book ushers in this new, divine reality, its orthodoxy is certain.

If there is any hint of heterodoxy, no matter how small, someone may notice. In late fall of 1991, The Lutheran Sentinel, the official periodical of the ELS, included a short news blurb entitled “WELS Hymnbook to be Inclusive.”695 Referencing a newspaper article from the

Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Sentinel claimed that the president of the WELS thought that the synod could be “flexible” on the matter of gender inclusive language in some parts of the hymnal in order to “avoid some of the stereotyping from which it had suffered.”696 The Star-Tribune’s reporting was correct, as Christian Worship did employ some instances of gender-neutral language, though it was not universally applied to all aspects of the hymnal. Its main occurrence is in Christian Worship’s version of the Nicene Creed. In the second article of the creed, WELS

692 The Commission on Worship of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), viii. 693 Ibid., ix. 694 Ibid., viii. 695 “WELS Hymnbook to be Inclusive,” The Lutheran Sentinel 74, no. 11 (November 1991): 14. 696 Ibid., 14. 232 rendered a phrase as “For us and for our salvation, he [Christ] came down from heaven…and became fully human.”697 While the language is subtle, it stands out in comparison with the version found in the ELS’s Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary: “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven…and was made man.”698 The Hymnary’s translation of the creed, while more literally reflecting the creed’s Greek and text, was a reaction against

Christian Worship and testified to the ELS’s orthodoxy. The Sentinel article gently chided the

WELS, reminding them that “a Lutheran hymnal ranks next to the explanation of Luther’s Small

Catechism as a synod’s handbook of Christian doctrine and worship. It is a book by which people confess their faith and are also instructed. A hymnal is not just another book.”699 Though the criticism was not serious enough to cause a doctrinal controversy (though it was one of the precipitating factors in the ELS’s decision to publish its own hymnal), the minor spat demonstrates the degree to which confessional Lutherans use hymnals to take the confessional temperature of a synod.

The confessional nature of a hymnal is not restricted to creeds, translations, and versions of the Divine Service. It begins with the book’s physical design. This is particularly the case with confessional Lutheran hymnbooks that were published in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Nearly all nineteenth and early twentieth century hymnals were stylistically identical to any other hymnal – a basic hardcover book in a neutral color. However, the hymnbooks of the

WELS, ELS, and Missouri Synod are all adorned with different designs on the front cover. They differ in degree of subtlety. Christian Worship’s burgundy cover is embossed with a golden Chi-

Rho, a traditional Christian symbol displaying the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek (a chi and

697 Christian Worship, 18 (emphasis added). 698 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, 47 (emphasis added). 699 “WELS Hymnbook to be Inclusive.” 233 rho) interconnected. The symbol’s antiquity communicates the hymnal’s grounding in the

Christian tradition as well as its identity as “a strongly Christ-centered book, bring together liturgies and a large number of hymns celebrating the life and atoning work of Jesus.”700 The symbol is unlikely to appear on an evangelical hymnal cover given the symbol’s association with

“high church” traditions.

The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary’s cover is relatively more elaborate. Designed by

Don Moldstad, the chaplain at the ELS’s Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota, the cover displays a cross with budded ends overlaid atop a harp encompassed by a diamond. The buds on the cross represent how the “tree” to which Christ was nailed serves as the tree of life for believers. The harp is an obvious reference to King David’s lyre and serves as a nearly universal

Christian symbol for hymnody and music. The diamond in the background, though, requires the most explanation. It is not simply a diamond. Rather, it is a “hobnail.” According to the ELS, a hobnail is a “diamond shaped notation…used in the sixteenth century, and it reminds us of the great reawakening of Gospel proclamation brought about by the Lutheran Reformation. It also reminds us of the work of Luther, the renewer of congregational song, and the glorious traditions of evangelical music making that culminated in the work of J. S. Bach.”701 The imagery is subtle, but it is distinctively Lutheran. One wonders how many congregants recognize the hobnail or connect it with the hymnal’s Lutheran heritage, but that it inconsequential. If a hymnal is a confessional document meant to showcase a synod’s orthodoxy, lay recognition of the symbolism behind the book’s cover design is irrelevant. Those who need to know do know.

The most elaborate cover design belongs to the Missouri Synod’s Lutheran Service Book.

When one looks at the burgundy hymnal, the first thing one notices is the golden cross in the

700 Christian Worship, 9. 701 “ELS Overview,” Evangelical Lutheran Synod, http://els.org/resources/worship/elh-overview. 234 cover’s upper right hand corner. However, the cross is not alone. Barely noticeable, a dark cross, blending into the hymnal, was imprinted inside the golden cross. This cross “is a reminder of the darkness of .”702 The golden cross represents Easter Sunday. Surrounding the cross are eight embossed squares which “remind us of Christ’s resurrection on Sunday, the eighth day, and the inauguration of a new creation through our Baptism into the death and resurrection of

Christ.”703 That is not all. Grasping the book near its spine, one feels groves along the inside edges of the cover. On the front, lines indicating the Holy Spirit descend from the top, leading to an open book – the Bible. The Spirit continues its descent to a shell pouring water, representing baptism, and finally to a cup with a thin communion host and a grapevine. All of the means of grace are inscribed into the hymnal’s front cover. On the back, the Trinity is symbolized by a hand extended from the top pointing towards a cross, which is followed by a dove. The Lutheran

Service Book’s cover is Lutheran. By emphasizing the means of grace, Trinitarian theology, and the subtle symbolism of the eight squares surrounding the golden cross, the hymnal communicates that it is an orthodox, confessional Lutheran hymnal produced by a synod which values its theological distinctiveness.

A hymnal’s Lutheran identity extends beyond the cover, of course. Before one reaches the first hymn, one discovers that all three hymnals include extensive front matter. While most

Protestant hymnals will include a preface or forward as well as a topical index, confessional

Lutheran hymnals include hundreds of pages of material. First and foremost, several rites of the

Divine Service are included. To this end, the Lutheran hymnal is the equivalent of a Catholic missal. Everything a Lutheran needs in worship, minus the biblical readings, is found in the hymnal. While all three contain the Common Service, the other settings included reflect the

702 Lutheran Service Book, ix. 703 Ibid., ix. 235 synod’s ethnic heritage. For instance, the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary reflects its sponsoring synod’s Norwegian heritage through the inclusion of ’s liturgy, otherwise known as the Danish-Norwegian Rite of 1685, as Rite I, which is the traditional liturgical rite used by Scandinavian Lutheran churches.704 Both Christian Worship and the Lutheran Service

Book lack this rite, since the WELS and Missouri Synod are ethnically German. Both the

Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary and the Lutheran Service Book contain a version of Martin

Luther’s Deutsche Messe, which reflect the liturgical priorities of the ELS and the Missouri

Synod.705 Nearly all of the rites in the three hymnals involve substantial chanting from the congregation and pastor. Additionally, the hymnals include orders for Morning and Evening

Prayer, or and Vespers. In particular, both the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary and the

Lutheran Service Book include other helps so that one can pray the . Thus, the hymnal provides the means by which can orient one’s prayer life. Significantly, since neither the Divine Service rites nor the Liturgy of the Hours involves extemporaneous prayer, an evangelical unfamiliar with liturgical worship would find themselves in foreign territory as they peruse the hymnal.

The confessional nature of the hymnals, while relying upon aesthetics, the front matter, and the hymns, is also literal in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary and the Lutheran Service

Book. Both of them contain a number of the documents found in the Book of Concord. The

Lutheran Service Book contains the and Luther’s Small Catechism. Since both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are used in the Divine Service, now all three of the

704 “ELH Overview.” 705 Christian Worship lacks the Deutsche Messe. While the Lutheran Service Book contains five rites for the Divine Service and the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary has four, Christian Worship offers only two. Since Christian Worship is the oldest of the three, the higher number in the later hymnals may indicate increased interest in liturgical renewal in the various synods. 236 ecumenical creeds are included in the hymnal. Additionally, since the Small Catechism is viewed as the ideal introduction to Lutheran doctrine, visitors who are unfamiliar with Lutheranism can study the catechism at will while sitting in the church and encounter the faith in the traditional manner. The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary goes further by placing its confessional selections at the very front of the hymnal and including more of them. In particular, the Hymnary publishes the entire Augsburg Confession alongside the ecumenical creeds and the Small Catechism. By including the Augsburg Confession, the ELS’s hymnal places itself in the lineage of the

Lutheran Hymnary and other Scandinavian hymnals which included it. Moreover, though, the confession’s presence in the hymnal indicates that “The way of worship is the way of faith… A hymnal is not just a utilitarian book to help us through the service on Sunday morning. It is a book of faith for use throughout the week. The confession reminds us of this, and it reminds us of what our congregations practice, preach and teach.”706 By including the Augsburg Confession in their hymnal, the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary’s editors emphasized that the didactic and confessional nature of a hymnbook is not restricted to the text and tunes of its hymns.

Hymns do matter, of course. They distinguish a Lutheran hymnal from a simple prayer book, and the music and text selected by the synods reflect their doctrinal and aesthetic emphases. Naturally, Lutheran hymns reflect Lutheran doctrine. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the WELS, ELS, and Missouri Synod filled their hymnals with texts which emphasize Lutheran doctrinal distinctives, such as the means of grace, or have a strong Lutheran heritage. “A Mighty

Fortress is Our God,” Luther’s Reformation battle hymn, is in each hymnal twice. The

Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary contains fourteen hymns written or composed by Luther, while both Christian Worship and the Lutheran Service Book have 27. The seminal seventeenth

706 “ELH Overview.” 237 century Lutheran hymnist is well represented in all the hymns as well, as seventeen hymns are included in the Lutheran Service Book, eighteen in Christian Worship, and

23 in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary. The sixteenth and seventeenth century hymns found in the hymnals tend to favor German sources, rather than Scandinavian sources, reflecting the ethnic heritage of the WELS and Missouri Synod. The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, on the other hand, contains more Scandinavian hymns than its counterparts. For instance, it contains seventeen hymns written by the influential seventeenth century Danish pastor , whereas Christian Worship includes seven and the Lutheran Service Book has only five.

The three hymnals also include hymns from non-Lutheran sources. While this is true for all of the hymnals, this is particularly the case with Christian Worship and the Lutheran Service

Book, since both the WELS and the Missouri contain constituencies which favor using contemporary music styles alongside traditional Lutheran hymnody.707 For instance, both hymnals contain the 1979 Catholic praise hymn “On Eagles’ Wings,” which is a paraphrase of

Psalm 91 that has found wide acclaim and use in Catholic and evangelical worship music.

However, “On Eagles’ Wings” is denominationally nonspecific. Since it paraphrases a biblical passage, it does not comment on doctrines that may be controversial in various circles. Other hymn texts were composed by non-Lutheran clerics or poets, but their theology coheres with confessional Lutheran theology. For instance, Christian Worship includes a baptismal hymn entitled “Baptized in Water” which is set to the tune of “Bunessan.” While few have probably ever heard of that tune name, nearly every congregant would immediately recognize it as the folk song “Morning Has Broken” made famous by Cat Stevens. The text paired with the tune was

707 This has created some measure of controversy in both synods. Preus’s The Fire and the Staff is partially in reaction to this trend and argued that contemporary music styles do not communicate reverence or Lutheran doctrine well. 238 written by Michael Saward, a twentieth century Anglican . The hymn’s words reflect a

“high church” theology of baptism:

Baptized in water Sealed by the Spirit Cleansed by the blood of Christ our King: Heirs of salvation, Trusting his promise Faithfully now God’s praises we sing.708

The words can be interpreted to reflect the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, since the baptized individual is “cleansed by the blood of Christ our King” and now is “trusting his promise” that his or her baptism communicates God’s salvation. While the words could be interpreted differently, nothing is present that necessarily contradicts Lutheran sacramental theology. The same is the case with the third verse:

Baptized in water, Sealed by the Spirit, Marked with the sign of Christ our King: Born of one Father, We are his children; Joyfully now God’s praises we sing.

This verse contains a reference to the “” made over the baptized child by the minister, which would not be found in an evangelical church which baptized infants. Thus, as non-Lutheran hymns are included in confessional Lutheran hymnals, doctrine takes priority.

Such hymns need to be theologically nonspecific or contain points of connection between

Lutheran and non-Lutheran theology in order to avoid controversy.

If a hymn is popular yet does not meet the doctrinal standards, the hymns is not necessarily banned from the hymnal. Rather, the hymn can be baptized as a Lutheran through creative editing. Hymns become acceptable by subtracting or adding verses or deleting key

708 Christian Worship 297:1. 239 phrases which disagree with Lutheran doctrine.709 One such hymn is “Amazing Grace.” In

Christian Worship, the WELS includes it in the section of hymns regarding the doctrine of justification. Written by John Newton, an Anglican, the original hymn text reflected Reformed theology, particularly in the second verse:

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved: How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed!710

According to Lutheran theology, grace cannot teach “my heart to fear,” since that is the role of the Law. The Law illuminates one’s sinfulness and distance from God, but the Gospel relieves one’s fears by revealing God’s love as demonstrated through Christ.711 Therefore, from a confessional Lutheran perspective, the second verse of “Amazing Grace” is heterodox. Rather than eliminating “Amazing Grace” from the hymnal,” the WELS hymnal editors removed the second verse entirely. The second verse in Christian Worship is the original third verse. The

Missouri Synod solved the conundrum in the same manner in the Lutheran Service Book. The

Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary avoided the problem altogether by not including “Amazing

Grace,” since it was deemed theologically vapid in comparison to distinctively Lutheran

709 This is not a uniquely Lutheran practice but rather reflects the fluid nature of hymns. Hymn composers do not define the meaning of a hymn. Hymnal organizers and congregants do. Hymns are frequently modified – officially and unofficially – in order for a hymn to better cohere with the orthodoxy of a particular denomination or congregation. For instance, some Primitive Baptists in the American South substitute the phrase “rising day” in place of “judgment day” in some of their hymns to make them agree with their understanding of predestination (Joyce H. Cauthen, ed., Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymn Book: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition [Montgomery, AL: Alabama Folklife Association, 1999], 101). Concerning this practice, see D. Bruce Hindmarsh, “‘Amazing Grace’: The History of a Hymn and a Cultural ,” in Sing Them Over Again to Me, 11-13; Mark A. Noll, “‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name’: Significant Variations on a Significant Theme,” in Sing Them Over Again to Me, 43-67; and Samuel J. Rogal, “Textual Changes in Popular Occasional Hymns Found in American Evangelical Hymnals,” in Sing Them Over Again to Me, 98-121. 710 Benjamin Lloyd, The Primitive Hymns, Spiritual Songs, and Sacred Poems, Regularly Selected, Classified and Set in Order. And Adapted to Social Singing and All Occasions of Divine Worship (Rocky Mount, NC: The Primitive Hymns Corporation, 2011), 3. 711 The classic analysis of this doctrine is Walther, Law and Gospel. 240 hymns.712 However, to placate those attached to the hymn’s tune, “New Britain,” the editors assigned it to H. F. Lyte’s “There is a Safe and Secret Place,” which was deemed sufficiently orthodox for congregational consumption.713

The ELS performed similar gymnastics with “Jesus Loves Me,” which they included in their hymnal. Long a popular Protestant children’s hymn, the first verse and refrain are not exactly theologically dense:

Jesus loves me! This I know, For the Bible tells me so, Little ones to Him belong: They are weak, but He is strong.

REFRAIN: Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.714

Written for children, it has an appropriate degree of spiritual depth. Given the reason for the absence of “Amazing Grace,” from the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, it would seem odd that this one was included, until one notices that the ELS added three more verses:

Jesus loves me! See His grace! On the cross He took my place. There He suffered and He died, That I might be glorified.

REFRAIN

Jesus loves me! God’s own Son Over sin the victr’y won. When I die, saved by His grace, I shall see Him face to face.

REFRAIN

Jesus loves me! He is near.

712 Mark DeGarmeaux, interview with the author, May 25, 2016. 713 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 218. 714 Ibid., 179:1 241 He is with His Church so dear. And the Spirit He has sent By His Word and Sacrament.

REFRAIN715

The three additional verses radically transform “Jesus Loves Me.” No longer a simple children’s song about Jesus’s love as witnessed through the Bible, the hymn now narrates the story of one’s salvation. Beginning with Christ’s substitutionary atonement on the cross, the hymn ends by referencing the means of grace, through which Jesus is present “with His Church so dear.”

Arguably, the editors of the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary converted “Jesus Loves Me” from a theologically nondescript children’s song to a hymn which confesses the distinctives of the

Lutheran faith. By doing so, the editors rendered judgment upon the perceived depth (or lack thereof) of American evangelicalism, to which this hymn is so closely connected. It was not sufficient for children to know that Jesus loved them; they needed to know that Jesus’s love is communicated through the Word and Sacraments. Reacting against evangelical vapidity, the hymn now is an avenue of orthodox catechesis which bears little resemblance to the original text, let alone the author’s original intent. Nevertheless, in order to include “Jesus Loves Me” in the hymnal, it had to become sufficiently Lutheran, which is precisely what happened.

Confessional Lutheran hymnals not only react to evangelicalism through edited and redacted hymns. The hymns included are also intended to regulate proper responses to emotion.

While Lutheran hymns acknowledge the central role of emotion in Lutheranism, they teach worshippers how to regulate them. Assuming that despair, doubt, and darkness are everywhere afflicting everyone, Lutheran hymnody prescribes comfort through objective sources – the Word and Sacraments. Thus, while it would be anachronistic to claim that Luther, Gerhardt, and other

715 Ibid., 179:2-4. 242 continental writers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were assailing evangelicalism, their inclusion in contemporary confessional Lutheran hymnals allows them to be read in that context. Much as Walther applied sixteenth century polemics to nineteenth century evangelicals, so do historic Lutheran hymns counteract evangelical approaches to religion which, from a Lutheran perspective, rely upon subjective experience. As always, the means of grace, or the Word and Sacraments, are the answers for emotional turmoil and the source of true religious experience.

The Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary’s version of “Jesus Loves Me” provides one example of Lutheran hymnody’s approach to emotion insofar as it teaches children to expect

Christ’s nearness through his divinely appointed means of grace. It is far from the only one. This relationship between the means of grace and human emotion is a common theme throughout

Lutheran hymnody. Luther set the pattern in his autobiographical hymn “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice.” In this hymn Luther charts his own conversion and how God comforted him, and this pattern is seen as emblematic for all Christians. He begins by noting his deep despair and doubt concerning his own salvation:

Fast bound in Satan’s chains I lay; Death brooded darkly o’er me. Sin was my torment night and day; In sin my mother bore me. Yet deep and deeper still I fell; Life had become a living hell, So firmly sin possessed me.

My own good works availed me naught, No merit they attaining; My will against God’s judgment fought, No hope for me remaining. My fears increased till sheer despair Left naught but death to be my share And hell to be my sentence.716

716 Christian Worship 377:2-3. 243

However, Luther’s dark emotions were seen by God, who provided a way to overcome them:

But God beheld my wretched state Before the world’s foundation, And, mindful of his mercies great, He planned my soul’s salvation. A Father’s heart he turned to me, Sought my redemption fervently; He gave his dearest treasure.717

Here the tone of the hymn shifts from despair to gladness. Luther deserved damnation, but God provided a way by giving “his dearest treasure,” Jesus. Importantly, God addresses Luther directly in the hymn. While directed to “Dear Christians, One and All,” the comfort offered by

God is individual. It is spoken directly to Luther or the individual congregant singing this hymn.

To this end, one’s emotions are comforted because of God’s direct, individual absolution through the Word. Midway through the hymn, the person speaking shifts. Now, it is Jesus, who continued his direct declaration to the individual Christian:

To me he spoke, “Hold fast to me – I am your rock and castle. Your ransom I myself will be; For you I strive and wrestle. For I am yours, your friend divine, And evermore you shall be mine; The foe shall not divide us.718

There is no room for doubt here. Jesus, speaking directly to the congregant, allays his or her fears by announcing that he is the Christian’s eternal friend, and Satan shall never change that status.

Luther offers comfort through “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice,” and emotion is at the hymn’s center. However, Luther does not teach that comfort comes through emotional experiences. While he is having a seemingly mystical encounter with the divine, that is not the

717 Ibid., 377:4 718 Ibid., 377:7. 244 source of comfort. Rather, his fears are removed when God refers him to the salvific work accomplished on the cross. Comfort for distraught emotions is fought there, in an objective cosmic-historical event, rather than in an individual’s efforts through the Law, “accepting” Jesus, or experiencing him. Rather, salvation is extra nos and through the cross.

Other hymns seek to mitigate the role of emotion in one’s apprehension of reality.

Emotions are inherently deceptive, because they are not rooted in God’s Word. Therefore, emotions ought to be tempered through the Word and the means of grace. Even suffering is ultimately delusionary if one treats it as a measuring rod of one’s closeness to God. Paul

Gerhardt makes this point in his seventeenth century hymn “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve

Me?” Gerhardt argues that despite suffering, God is always near, regardless of whether or not one feels his presence:

Why should cross and trial grieve me? Christ is near With His cheer; Never will He leave me. Who can rob me of the heaven That God’s Son For my own To my faith hat given?

Though a heavy cross I’m bearing And my heart Feels the smart, Shall I be despairing? God my Helper, who doth send it, Well doth know All my woe And how best to end it.719

Gerhardt implores the worshipper to keep an eternal perspective. While grief, sorrow, and trials are a part of earthly life, their presence does not mean that God is silent or ignoring them. Rather,

719 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 377:1-2. 245 “Christ is near” and “never will He leave me.” Nobody can steal one’s salvation from one to whom Christ has given it. Therefore, emotional despair does not correlate with reality.

Many other hymns confirm this. C. L. Scheidt, a seventeenth century German hymnist, wrote:

By grace I’m saved, grace free and boundless; My soul, believe and doubt it not. Why stagger at this word of promise? Hath Scripture ever falsehood taught? Nay; then this word must true remain: By grace thou, too, shalt heav’n obtain.

By grace! This ground of faith is certain; So long as God is true, it stands. What saints have penned by inspiration, What in His Word our God commands, What our whole faith must rest upon, Is grace alone, grace in His Son.720

Scheidt is explicit. One’s comfort rests in the promises of scripture. Since the Word declares one’s forgiveness through grace, it must be so. Therefore, the Christian ought to cast all doubt and despair away, as wrote in one of the first Lutheran hymns, “Salvation Unto Us

Is Come,” which he composed while imprisoned:

Not doubting this, I trust in Thee, Thy Word cannot be broken, Thou all dost call, “Come unto Me!” No falsehood hast Thou spoken: “He who believes and is baptized, He shall be saved,” say’st Thou, O Christ, And he shall never perish.

Speratus and Scheidt point Lutherans to the Word as the only sure source of comfort amidst emotional turmoil. Only external means, not internal ones, grant assurance. Since God’s Word promises salvation, emotions to the contrary can be safely discounted. Emotions require

720 Ibid., 226:1, 5. 246 regulation. The hymnody presented by confessional Lutheran hymnals provides a firm, united testimony of approach to religious experience.

Conclusion

In 2010, the real estate blog “Movoto” designated Fort Wayne, Indiana, as the fifth most boring city in the United States. Granted, the city “does have a ton of and some really decent minor league sports. So, yeah, good for you guys on that stuff. But once you’re sick of those, there aren’t many alternatives.”721 Dan O’Connell, the president and CEO of Visit Fort

Wayne, dismissed the article, saying, “You have to look into their ranking criteria deeper than the surface and they’re not going to look deep because they’re looking for viewership and eyeballs, not a factual statement.”722 O’Connell argued that Fort Wayne’s seemingly nondescript nature could be deceiving. The same could be said about Lutheran Church, a Missouri

Synod parish on Fort Wayne’s south side. Driving through a troubled neighborhood, one comes upon an early twentieth century church building that does not stand out from the dozens of similarly designed churches in the city. However, once one has entered, it is apparent that the parish is different. Passing the information table, one finds several free copies of Gottesdienst, a confessional Lutheran periodical dedicated to explaining and defending the traditional liturgy against contemporary worship and non-Lutheran innovations that detract from reverence and pure doctrine.

Redeemer is about liturgy. Its website introduce the parish to the visitor as “a confessional, liturgical congregation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. In our worship

721 Laura Allan, “These Are The Ten Most Boring Cities In America,” Movoto Blog, June 4, 2014, http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/most-boring-cities-in-america. 722 “Is Fort Wayne boring? One list says it’s a ‘snorefest,’” WANE-TV, June 6, 2014, http://wane.com/2014/06/05/is-fort-wayne-boring-one-list-says-its-a-snorefest. 247 we observe the Historic Liturgy, notable for its dignity and reverence. Its Lutheran perspective is unmistakable.”723 This is most certainly true. It is decidedly “high church.” At 10:30 a.m., when the Divine Service begins, the church’s bells ring to announce the service’s beginning. The organist and accompanying ensemble then begin to play the first hymn as the congregation faces the back of the nave as the cross and ministers process to the altar. As the golden crucifix and the

Gospel book pass, people bow and cross themselves. Music fills nearly the entire service through either chant or accompaniment. Redeemer has a “praise band,” but it is not what one would expect. It is “The 17th-Century Praise Band,” though it has recently renamed itself as the

“Redeemer Consort.” Given the band’s former snarky name, though, one can guess at its repertoire and what it is reacting against. Music, like the liturgy, is formal at Redeemer. Indeed, the liturgy comes with a disclaimer on the parish’s website. Reacting specifically against the appropriation of Christian contemporary music by some Lutheran churches, Redeemer has

“resisted–not because we are just conservative and reject change for the sake of doing things the way they ‘have always been done.’ But rather, we are fully committed to the Holy Scriptures, the

Book of Concord, the study of the historic liturgy, and therefore receive our Lutheran heritage, including ceremonies, as grateful recipients.”724 The parish claims that

our services are very similar to the sort of worship practiced by Martin Luther in Wittenberg after the Reformation. We do not prize aesthetics and art over content, but we do contend that form follows function and the medium carries meaning along with the message. Our ceremonies are not accidental or even merely habit. They are very deliberate and always based on historic practices. Though they are aesthetically pleasing to many, their intent is not to convey beauty but to communicate God’s presence among us in Word and Sacrament.725

723 “Homepage,” Redeemer Lutheran Church, http://redeemer-fortwayne.org. 724 “About the Divine Service,” Redeemer Lutheran Church, http://redeemer-fortwayne.org/about-the-divine-service. 725 “The Willan Setting and Closed Communion,” Redeemer Lutheran Church, http://redeemer-fortwayne.org/about- the-divine-service/the-wilan-setting-and-closed-communion. 248 In order to properly communicate the sacredness of the Divine Service, Redeemer utilizes the

Willian Setting, which was composed by a Canadian Lutheran musician for the main Order of

Holy Communion found in the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal. 726 The Willan Setting is not user friendly, but that does not matter. The website advises visitors that the liturgy at Redeemer

“requires serious initial effort on the part of our visitors. However, we have suggested to [sic] many first-time visitors that they should listen and concentrate upon the words if the music is too much of a struggle for them. Participation can be very salutary through the ears. Visitors have told us that after about 3 or 4 Sundays, the music starts to become easier for them.”727 Redeemer expects its worshippers to exercise patience and submit to the historic liturgy of the church.

Redeemer’s devotion to the Divine Service is not restricted to its .

Rather, its ministers use a number of media sources in order to educate people about Lutheran liturgy and the theology grounding it. Daniel H. Petersen, the parish’s pastor, is a frequent guest on the Lutheran talk radio show Issues, Etc., in which he opines on liturgical seasons, the , and other matters related to conducting the Divine Service. Through his radio appearances and publications, Pastor Petersen has become a recognized figure in confessional

Lutheran circles, garnering numerous speaking engagements at conferences and other parishes.

Redeemer’s associate pastor, Michael Frese, has a less conventional approach to propagating

Lutheran liturgics. Pastor Frese operates Emmanuel Press, an independent publishing house run out of Redeemer Lutheran Church which specializes in liturgical handbooks, postilla (sermon collections), and prayer books. The venture began when Frese and Benjamin Mayes, then a student at the Missouri Synod seminary in Fort Wayne, published The Brotherhood Prayer Book, a Lutheran breviary meant to increase the use of the Liturgy of the Hours amongst confessional

726 Ibid. 727 Ibid. 249 Lutheran pastors.728 Following the breviary’s success, the press expanded to publishing translations of German prayers books as well as reprints of liturgical manuals, such as Paul H. D.

Lang’s Ceremony and Celebration. Most of Emmanuel Press’s books are sold at the bookstore at

Concordia Theological Seminary on Fort Wayne’s north side and thus are bought by eager seminarians. Indeed, many seminarians attend Redeemer, even though it is nearly a ten mile drive from campus. However, if one wants to see the Divine Service conducted in the most “high church” manner possible, Redeemer is the place to go.

While Redeemer’s approach and devotion to the Divine Service is unusual in the

Missouri Synod, it illustrates the centrality of the Divine Service to confessional Lutheranism.

While justification by faith alone through grace may be Lutheranism’s hallmark doctrine, the

Divine Service is Lutheranism’s center. In the service, heaven meets earth. However, while the boundaries between the eternal and temporal are thinned through God’s presence in the means of grace, the boundaries between Lutheranism and evangelicalism thicken. While the Divine

Service presents a positive definition of Lutheran theology, it also negatively defines

Lutheranism against American evangelicalism, which is charged with relying upon subjective emotion for assurance. However, for confessional Lutherans, emotions are not reliable. Certainty is found in external means which God ordained to communicate forgiveness, namely the Word, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. As evidenced through Lutheran defenses of infant baptism, which argue that the infant has been granted faith, experience is irrelevant. Instead, one’s objective status as a baptized child of God washed in Christ’s blood trumps whatever feelings one might have. Due to confessional Lutheranism’s obsession with pure doctrine and certainty,

728 “About Us,” Emmanuel Press, http://emmanuelpress.us/about-us. 250 the emotional uncertainty raised by American evangelicalism’s approach to religious experience leads Lutherans critics to charge it with dangerous heterodoxy.

Hymnals continue these critiques, reacting against evangelicalism through their design, construction, and composition. Confessional Lutheran hymnals are examples of material culture which are designed to be distinctively Lutheran. The iconography found on the covers of

Christian Worship, the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, and the Lutheran Service Book all bear the marks of Lutheran theology. They are confessional not only through their design but also through their front matter. Containing confessions of faith as well as Divine Service settings and other materials, hymnals provide everything that one needs to conduct the service. However, hymnals are not only confessional but also barometers of orthodoxy meant to communicate the degree of confessionalism adopted by the hymnal’s sponsor. Therefore, purity of doctrine is requisite. The hymns’ orthodoxy is, in some cases, literally constructed through creative editing or additions which allow otherwise heterodox hymns a place in the hymnal. Purity of doctrine also extends to religious experience. Many of the hymns included in the hymnals outline proper responses to emotion. A good Lutheran, according to the hymnody, rejects emotional impulses as spurious and relies upon the objective reality found in the Word and Sacraments. Thus, confessional Lutheran hymnody creates an emotional orthodoxy which is directly tied to theological orthodoxy. Without even mentioning the word “evangelical,” Lutherans reject evangelicalism’s emotionology as false and harmful. Providing no comfort, evangelicalism places one in extreme spiritual danger. Only the means of grace can satisfy one’s emotional needs.

251 CHAPTER 5

SERMONS IN STONE: LUTHERAN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE AS A CONFESSIONAL STATEMENT

The drive between Richmond, Indiana, and Fort Wayne, 92 miles to the north, is a microcosm of

Midwestern Protestant religion. Richmond, one of the oldest cities in Indiana, was founded in

1806 by Quaker settlers moving west from North Carolina. The pioneer town quickly became a center of Quakerism in the Midwest, supporting Earlham College, a liberal arts college, and countless meeting houses.729 Even today, the Friends United Meeting, the liberal Quaker denomination, has its offices a few miles north of downtown. Friends meetinghouses still dot the landscape. While those in town tend to be constructed of brick with stained glass, built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when the town’s Quaker community was at its zenith, a few early eighteenth century meetinghouses remain in quiet corners of the country. Built of brick but lacking any intricate designs, the meetinghouses evoke the testimony of simplicity characteristic of early American Quakerism.730 Anti-sacramental to the core, Quakers worshipped divided by sex, facing each other while they waited for the Spirit to give someone a message that he or she would communicate to the meeting. No space is designated for instruments, no pulpit is intended for preaching, no baptismal font stands ready for adults or infants, and no altar or table waits for communion bread and wine.

Continuing up U.S. Highway 27, one is surrounded by Amish churches, though one does not know it. The Amish do not curate physical meetinghouses like their Quaker neighbors.

729 Concerning Richmond’s Quaker heritage, see Mary Raddant Tomlan and Michael A. Tomlan, Richmond Indiana: Its Physical Development and Aesthetic Heritage to 1920 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 2003), 7-14, and Thomas D. Hamm, et. al., “Moral Choices: Two Indiana Quaker Communities and the Abolitionist Movement,” Indiana Magazine of History 87, no. 2 (1991):117-154. 730 For comprehensive examinations of Quaker theology and practices, see Pink Dandelion, An Introduction to Quakerism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Thomas Hamm, The Quakers in America, Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). 252 Rather, since the church is the assembly of believers, there is no need for an official edifice designated as “the church.” Also, since the earliest days of their faith, Anabaptists met in houses in order to avoid detection, which often would have deadly results. If Anabaptists wished to be baptized a second time, Catholics, Reformed, and Lutherans thought, then a third, more permanent baptism, with one’s hands tied as the individual was dropped into the lake, would suit them well. Therefore, house churches were a matter of necessity. While the Amish are not in danger of a fatal rebaptism, Amish maintain the tradition of worshipping in houses in order to remember their heritage, which is also kept in the forefront of their minds through the plentiful martyrdom hymns in the , which has been in continuous use since the sixteenth century, and the ubiquitous presence of the Martyrs Mirror, which contains over a thousand pages of tales of gruesome torture and death perpetrated upon the Anabaptists.731 More positively, Amish church services move from house to house, which represents the equal brotherhood of believers.

The Amish’s church architecture, through its absence, testifies to the theological and historical underpinnings of their worship practices and faith.

Anabaptists of every stripe abound in Indiana. Brethren, Amish, Mennonite, and nearly every variety of those traditions have long established populations in northern Indiana. Settled by

Germans and Swiss, the region proved fertile grounds for Anabaptists seeking good farmland and entrepreneurial opportunities. Berne, thirty-four miles south of Fort Wayne, was one such community. Founded by Swiss Mennonite settlers, the town boasts a massive clock tower

(modeled after one in Switzerland) and numerous furniture shops. Berne is also home to First

731 See D. Rose , Why the Amish Sing: Songs of Solidarity and Identity, Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); John Hostetler, Amish Society, 4th ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); David L. Weaver-Zercher, Martyrs Mirror: A Social History, Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); and Paul M. Yoder, et. al., Four Hundred Years with the Ausbund (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1964). 253 Mennonite Church, the largest Mennonite congregation in the United States. Unlike the Amish house churches or plain church buildings one will find closer to the

Indiana-Michigan border, First Mennonite is a massive Gothic revival structure, complete with a multilevel education and community center, stained glass windows, an organ, and a prominent pulpit.732 Nothing distinguishes the exterior from any other early twentieth century “downtown church” in a small Midwestern town. Berne’s Mennonite population acquiesced to participation in the world more so than their Amish cousins (who live in the countryside surrounding Berne), and their church reflects it. As church discipline became more liberal and Mennonites gradually assimilated into American society, their architecture followed suit.733

On the outskirts of Fort Wayne, in Decatur, sits St. John’s Lutheran Church. Founded in

1845, the parish predates the Missouri Synod and was one of the synod’s charter congregations.734 However, the building does not date to 1845. It was constructed in 1878, as the cornerstone reminds congregants as they enter through the main doors. The cornerstone stands testimony to the church’s German ethnic heritage, reading “St. Johanneskirche.” Unlike the

Mennonite, Amish, and Quaker churches further south on U.S. 27, St. John’s has a prominent altar backed against the very front of the church, indicating the centrality of the Lord’s Supper in its worship (see Figure 5.1). Watching over the altar is a statue of Jesus as a shepherd, holding a lamb in one hand and a crook in the other. Jesus, with his pale white skin and blue eyes, looks

German. Painted onto the bottom of the altar is a portrait of the . The multiple

732 “Our Story,” First Mennonite Church, http://www.firstmennonite.org/about-us/our-story. 733 Concerning the history of Mennonites in Indiana, see Rich Preheim, In Pursuit of Faithfulness: Conviction, Conflict, and Compromise in the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2016), and J. C. Wenger, The Mennonites in Indiana and Michigan (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1961). 734 “About Us,” St. John’s Lutheran Church, https://stjohnbingen.360unite.com/about. 254 images of Jesus demonstrate that Lutherans, unlike Reformed Protestants, do not believe that statues of Christ run afoul of the commandment against graven images found in Exodus.

The sacramental emphasis of worship at St. John’s is present in the Church Militant at the altar and amongst the Church Militant in the parish cemetery adjacent to the church building.

Though still an active cemetery, people have been buried there since the congregation’s inception. There is a stark contrast between the modern gravestones with their sharply chiseled inscriptions and the older monuments battered by a century and a half of harsh Hoosier weather.

Many of the nineteenth century memorials display barely legible German texts from hymns, poems, and scripture. However, the artistry has survived the elements. Open books, depicting the

Book of Life, are found on many, as one would find on many nineteenth century grave stones.

Others, though, are more distinctively Lutheran. One of the memorials is inscribed with a shell, grapevines, and a , representing the means of grace (see Figure 5.2). The sacraments provided salvation to the parishioner when he worshipped at St. John’s, and now, according to

Lutheran theology, that salvation has been actualized as his remains lie buried in the churchyard.

One can tell a lot about a region’s history from church architecture. Driving along U.S.

27, one can tell the story of the religious settlement of eastern Indiana in the mid- to late nineteenth century simply by looking at church edifices and stopping at cemeteries to admire grave art. Moreover, the aesthetics of the churches narrate the theologies and histories of their congregants. Church design is not happenstance, and, for the most part, it is not merely pragmatic. Rather, church designs communicate priorities and stories. It is catechetical and confessional. While the Quaker meetinghouse near Richmond lacked an altar since Quakers dismiss sacraments as unnecessary forms of mediation between humans and God, St. John’s

Lutheran Church near Decatur placed the altar as the church’s focal point, and sacramental

255 iconography was etched into gravemarkers. On a stretch of highway in rural Indiana, one witnessed the legacies of the Radical Reformation, seventeenth century English Dissent, and

Lutheran Reformation. Early Modern European history and theology is on full display in the midst of the cornfields.

Church architecture mediates theological concerns and priorities through presence and absence. What is present is equally as important as what is not. A growing historiography has recognized that church edifices provide additional avenues for analysis of American religion.

Studies of church architecture grew out of growing scholarly concern for material culture and drew heavily from religious studies theorist Mircea Eliade’s argument that humans naturally divide the world between the sacred and profane. According to Eliade, “the religious experience of the nonhomogeneity of space is a primordial experience, homologizable to a founding of the world.”735 The creation of sacred space is “a primary religious experience that precedes all reflection on the world.”736 Essentializing the creation of sacred space as central to all religious behavior, Eliade applied his theory to churches, noting that “For a believer, the church shares in a different space from the street in which it stands…. The threshold that separates the two spaces also indicates the distance between two modes of being, the profane and the religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that distinguishes and opposes two worlds – and at the same time the paradoxical place where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible.”737 Therefore, sacred space orients one to the world and one’s sense of a community’s proscribed vision of the sacred and profane.

735 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask (Orlando: Harcourt Books, 1957), 20-21. 736 Ibid., 21. 737 Ibid., 25. 256 Eliade’s theory proved influential. For instance, Thomas Carter’s 2015 study of Latter- day Saint architecture in Utah’s Sanpete Valley argued that “it is possible to see a set of very specific Mormon concepts, both social and cultural, being projected through the symbolization process as the objective reality of everyday life in Zion. The material world built and used by the

Sanpete Latter-day Saints reflected Mormon belief and value systems, while at the same time, through the imaginative myths that supported it, it provided Zion with an ideological foundation, conceptually defining what it meant to be a Mormon in the nineteen century.”738 Mormons created a “landscape of difference” by constructing their mythology through stonework and masonry.739 Carter’s work is social history, arguing that one can trace changes in Mormon concepts of the sacred and profane through church buildings. However, Carter’s work, resting upon Eliade’s bifurcation, assumes a sharp distinction between the sacred and profane that is constantly shifting. More recent studies of secularism have moved scholars of religion away from that presupposition by avoiding the terms “sacred” and “profane,” which possess theological baggage, and questioning the very division between the “religious” and “secular.”740

Following trends concerning the use of material culture in history, studies of church architectures that do not reflect Eliadean concerns of the “sacred” and “profane” emphasize the value of church architecture as a means to narrate cultural history. Jeanne Halgren Kilde’s When

Church Became Theatre argued that “As U.S. Protestants modified their religious beliefs and practices to better address their changing lives, they also altered their church buildings…. While churches have provided a physical setting for worship practices, they have also inspired,

738 Thomas Carter, Building Zion: The Material World of Mormon Settlement, Architecture, Landscape, and American Culture Series (Minneapolis: Press, 2015), xxxi. 739 Ibid., xvii. 740 For instance, Tracy Fessenden argues in Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) that secularism necessarily reflects and mediates the religious concerns of the majority culture, regardless of whether or not an idea claims religious origins for not. In other words, the boundary between the “religious” and “secular” is permeable and illusory. 257 fostered, and sustained significant changes in both belief and practice.”741 While acknowledging the sacrality of church space, Kilde believed that it “serves to place one’s self or one’s group in proximity to (and preferably closer to) perceived power sources, be they human or divine, secular or supernatural.”742 Thus “In their capacity as social designators, then, church buildings and spaces are political places, places in which social power and authority are asserted, tested, and negotiated.”743 Louis P. Nelson agreed in his study of Anglican architecture in colonial

South Carolina, arguing that Anglican church architecture served “as a medium for shifting popular theologies and as the setting for sacramental liturgies.”744 For instance, Anglican churches’ use of arched windows distinguished them as specifically Anglican sacred spaces in distinction from Dissenter meetinghouses, which rejected the notion that a church was a separated, sacred space.745 For Kilde and Nelson, church architecture is a lens through which theological and social conflicts and differences are made manifest. Rather than simple demarcations of the “sacred” and “profane,” church architecture is a means of community self- definition through which theological and social concerns are mediated and distinctions are made with other religious communities.746

The present chapter follows the historiographical insights of Kilde and Nelson by arguing that many confessional Lutheran churches construct their parish buildings as a material means of distinguishing themselves from religious competitors, such as American evangelicals. Grounded in a permissive understanding of adiaphora, or indifferent matters not explicitly forbidden by the

741 Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 9. 742 Ibid., 10. 743 Ibid., 11. 744 Louis P. Nelson, The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism and Architecture in Colonial South Carolina (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 7. 745 Ibid., 147-150. 746 Paul Eli Ivey applied a similar methodology to Christian Scientists in Prayers in Stone: Christian Science Architecture in the United States, 1894-1930 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999). 258 Bible, confessional Lutheran architecture reflects the centrality of the Word and Sacraments to

Lutheran worship while also relating their connection to the ancient Christian tradition. By specifically avoiding features reminiscent of evangelical churches, confessional Lutheran churches present an alternative version of a “seeker friendly” church as architecture serves as yet another form of catechesis to communicate the Lutheran faith to adherents and potential converts.

The chapter does not seek to define or essentialize certain features of church architecture as normative for confessional Lutheran churches. The trend described is sporadic rather than uniform, since there is no standard design which Lutheran churches apply when planning a new building, and congregational committees, regardless of synodical suggestions, are the ultimate decision makers concerning the design of their church. However, since the 1990s, a trend has arisen which aims to design church buildings which are perceived as distinctively Lutheran.

Partially a result of the twentieth century liturgical movement and a reaction against ugly church architecture from the Sixties and the rise of “seeker friendly” evangelical churches, some churches have sought to return to “traditional” Lutheran church architecture as a means of identifying themselves specifically as confessional Lutherans. Specialized architects, synodical resources, and congregational networks provide the backbone of this trend. Confessional

Lutheran architecture will be analyzed through case studies of Resurrection Lutheran Church in

Verona, Wisconsin, and Trinity Lutheran Chapel and the Chapel of the Christ in Mankato and

New Ulmn, Minnesota, respectively. Confessional Lutheran architecture prioritizes the centrality of adiaphora, the means of grace, and liturgical worship to the Lutheran faith in contrast to

American evangelicalism.

259 Indifferent Yet Essential: Adiaphora, Difference, and Lutheran Church Buildings

Ironically, the most important aspects of confessional Lutheran church architecture are technically indifferent. As was discussed earlier in this dissertation, the only binding Lutheran definition of “the church” is Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”747 The only requirements for a church are pure doctrine and the administration of the sacraments. , elaborate or pattens for the Lord’s Supper, raised pulpits, high , and stained-glass windows are neither prescribed nor proscrobed. Rather, such elements fall under the category of adiaphora, meaning indifferent matters. Whereas Reformed theology developed the regulative principle of worship, which forbade any element of worship not specifically mandated by scripture, Lutherans took the opposite approaching, allowing anything within the context of worship except that which was explicitly forbidden by the Bible.

Therefore, under the guise of “the conservative Reformation,” Lutheran church architecture and worship practices remained close to their Catholic roots. Thus, various adiaphora were maintained and became a part of the Lutheran tradition. Lutheran church architecture, through its acceptance and normatizing of adiaphora, developed distinctly from the forms of Reformed church architecture which predominated America. Confessional Lutherans have long conceived of their church architecture as being unique and separate from others due to its theological presuppositions. This is evident through church architecture manuals, such as Paul E.

Kreztmann’s in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship, and Bible studies used by pastors to communicate “proper” church architecture to parish members.

747 Concordia Triglotta, 47. 260 In 1522, with Luther hidden away in the Castle for his protection, Andreas

Karlstadt filled the resulting vacuum and became the Reformation’s main leader in

Wittenberg.748 In Luther’s absence, the Reformation took a radically different turn. Under

Karlstadt’s preaching, the liturgy was reformed, Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist was denied, clerical vestments were forbidden, and church music and art were banned. Karlstadt’s iconoclasm was rooted in his interpretation of the . Reading the commandment in

Exodus forbidding graven images and “other gods,” Karlstadt believed that statues of Jesus, saints, and other figures in churches violated God’s laws and must be removed.749 Therefore, his followers forcefully removed ecclesiastical art from the city churches in an iconoclastic fury.

Disgusted, Luther returned from his exile and denounced Karlstadt. While Karslstadt believed that the graven images found in formerly Catholic churches were idols by definition, Luther believed that one’s attitude towards the images determined whether or not they were idols.750

Luther took a different approach to the Ten Commandments than Karlstadt. Luther believed that the proscription of “graven images” was an appendix to the First Commandment:

“You are to have no other gods.” Luther did not address images in his Small Catechism. His explanation of the First Commandment simply read: “We are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.”751 Luther expanded upon this in the Large Catechism, describing a “god” as “that to

748 Concerning Karlstadt’s life and theology, see Amy Nelson Burnett, Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy: A Study in the Circulation of Ideas, Oxford Studies in (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); R. J. Sider, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt: The Development of His Thought, 1517- 1525, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing, 1997); R. J. Sider, ed., Karlstadt’s Battle with Luther: Documents in a Liberal-Radical Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978). 749 Concerning Karlstadt’s rejection of ecclesiastical art, see Neil R. Leroux, “‘In the Christian City of Wittenberg’: Karlstadt’s on Images and Begging,” The Sixteenth-Century Journal 34, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 73-105. 750 Ibid., 84; concerning Luther’s approach to religious art, see Carl C. Christiansen, Art and the Reformation in Germany (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979), 22-35, 42-65, and Sergiusz Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant image question in Western and Eastern Europe, Christianity and Society in the Modern World (New York: Routledge, 1993). 751 Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 351. 261 which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God.”752 A soul’s intent created an idol rather than the labors of one’s hands. Luther later wrote in the same passage of the Large Catechism that

“Idolatry does not consist merely of erecting an image and praying to it, but it is primarily a matter of the heart, which fixes its gaze upon other things and seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils.”753 Therefore, God did not prohibit religious in churches.

Rather, he forbade people from praying to them, worshipping them, or holding superstitious beliefs about them. Religious imagery fell under a Christian’s liberty. As long as he or she did not turn them into idols, and they promoted the gospel, they were adiaphora and suitable for churches. In contrast to Karlstadt and later iconoclastic Protestants, Luther refused to strip the altars.754

Later Lutheran theologians perpetuated Luther’s attitude towards ecclesiastical art and adiaphora in general as they distinguished themselves from iconoclasm associated with the

Radical Reformation and Reformed theology.755 Within the Lutheran Confessins, adiaphora was addressed in detail in the Formula of Concord, which was primary directed against Reformed

Protesants and , who were Lutheran followers of Melanchthon who were seen by the

Gneiso-Lutherans as too comprising with Calvinists.756 The Formula declared that “ceremonies

752 Ibid., 386. 753 Ibid., 388. 754 Concerning the “stripping of the altars” in the , see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 755 Concerning John Calvin’s thought concerning the Word and imagery, see Randall C. Zachman, Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 756 See Arand, Kolb, and Nestingen, 201-216, and Kolb, Confessing the Faith, 99-131. 262 or ecclesiastical practices that are neither commanded nor forbidden in God’s Word, but have been established only for good order and decorum, are in and of themselves neither worship ordained by God nor a part of such worship.”757 Since these matters are indifferent, the Formula confessed that “the community of God in every place and at every time has the authority to alter such ceremonies according to its own situation, as may be most useful and edifying for the community of God.”758 As long as the practices promote the worship of God, do not detract from pure doctrine, and are practiced for “good order and decorum,” adiaphora are permissible.759 As situations change, those indifferent matters can be changed “as may be most useful and edifying for the community of God.”760 Furthermore, unlike divergence in doctrine, acceptance of different adiaphoric practices is not cause for condemnation or schism. Rather, as long as pure doctrine is retained, churches ought to tolerate each others’ practices.

There are occasions, however, when adiaphora no longer are indifferent. The confessors wrote that “in a time of persecution, when an unequivocal confession of the faith is demanded of us, we dare not yield to the opponents in such indifferent matters.”761 If one claims that a church cannot perform certain otherwise indifferent matters, then the dispute has risen to a theological level, since the debate concerns what is allowable under the gospel. Since the opponents of the adiaphora are creating a new law which is not found in God’s Word, they are setting themselves as a new law and therefore intruding upon a church’s Christian liberty.762 Therefore, doctrine is at stake. Under such circumstances, Lutherans must insist on practicing the adiaphora. It is no longer a choice. For instance, describing Paul’s avoidance of sacrificed food in Romans 14, the

757 Kolb and Wengert, 515. 758 Ibid., 515. 759 Ibid., 515. 760 Ibid., 515. 761 Ibid., 516. 762 Ibid., 638. 263 authors of the Formula claim that the apostle was supporting the faith of weak Christians. Once they grew stronger in their faith, they would recognize their error, but they were not making a new law. They were growing out of the old law. However, Paul “does not want to submit to false apostles, who wanted to impose such things upon consciences as necessary even in matters that were in themselves free and indifferent.”763 Therefore, in a state of confession (in status confessionis) in the the midst of doctrinal controversy, adiaphora no longer maintain their indifferent status. Rather, the Formula argues that Lutherans are compelled to distinguish themselves from heterodox churches through traditions, such as ecclesiastical art. Negative definition is a confessional principle. If someone says that Lutherans cannot do something, then

Lutherans are obliged to do it. If other Protestants argue that ecclesiastical iconography violates the First Commandment, then such imagery becomes intrinsically Lutheran.

Johann Gerhard, an influential seventeenth century Lutheran scholastic theologian, continued this analysis of the permissibility of religious iconography in his Theological

Commonplaces, a very detailed, multivolume compendium of Lutheran orthodox theology. In his commonplace on the Law, Gerhard devoted a sizeable section (nearly sixty pages in the English translation) to issues of idolatry, graven images, and the First Commandment. Gerhard echoes

Luther’s definition of idolatry, claiming that “Whenever trust and obedience are given to anything so that God’s commandment is broken, another god is thereby made. When we credit benefits we have received not to God, but to created things, when we look for other saviors and liberators than the true God, we are making other gods for ourselves.”764 Again, idolatry depends upon one’s internal thoughts towards God rather than material objects. Gerhard elaborates:

763 Ibid., 637. 764 Johann Gerhard, On the Law, On the Ceremonial and Forensic Laws, trans. Richard J. Dinda, Theological Commonplaces (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2015), 63. 264 “Because this notion or mental concept is utterly vain, therefore it says in this respect (1 Cor.

8:4): ‘An idol is nothing in the world,’ that is, it is not a thing subsisting of itself. With regard to their end, the gods of the heathen are said to be ‘demons’ (Ps. [106:37]); for whenever divine honor is given to idols, then it is not to the wood or the stone or the sun but to the devil that the honor of the worshipper is being given (Ps. [96:5]).”765 Idolatry is divorced from the essential properties of material objects (e.g., wood, stone, or the sun) but is dependent upon one’s attitude.

Therefore, religious artwork is not forbidden, as Gerhard goes to great lengths to prove. Granting a distinction between “idol-making” and “image-making,” he argued that “Idol-making…not image-making…is forbidden by this commandment because not every image is an idol but only becomes an idol when one begins to worship and adore it.”766 Therefore, since religious imagery is not forbidden, it is an adiaphoron and has been left to the realm of Christian liberty.”767 Since icons are matters of Christian liberty, they must be defended by Lutherans. Additionally, images in churches are useful “(1) in reminding; (2) in stirring up affection; [and] (3) in decorating….”768 Regardless, imagery in churches in of itself does not add or detract from orthodoxy. Only pure doctrine can do that: “The purity and integrity of the Word are the only truly certain remedy for avoiding idolatry. So long as the purity of the Word stands, there will be no danger from images. When the integrity of the Word has fallen into ruin, there will be a headlong slide into idolatry even if no statues or images exist.”769 Theology and personal thoughts make an idol, not the material object. Therefore, church art involving images of heavenly or earthly beings is permissible.

765 Ibid., 64. 766 Ibid., 67. 767 Ibid., 73. 768 Ibid., 77. 769 Ibid., 74. 265 Lutheran theology provides the groundwork for distinctively Lutheran church architecture. The development of this style occurred gradually in America. When Lutherans settled in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia in the eighteenth century, their church buildings largely resembled the generically Protestant church architecture of their surroundings with a prominent pulpit and a plain altar in the chancel. This was largely the result of Lutherans’ lack of means to construct more elaborate churches. When the Stephanites arrived in Missouri, they constructed German-style Lutheran parishes in Perry County and surrounding communities, though their congregation in St. Louis originally leased from Christ Episcopal Church, where they met in the basement.770 As the Missouri Synod was organized and its congregants gained means, their churches became more distinctive. Pulpits were raised and constructed to the side of the altar, which was the church’s focal point and set against the wall in the chancel. Parish cemeteries were normally placed adjacent to the church.

Church architecture became more formalized in the early twentieth century, as confessional Lutheran synods became more established and separated from the immigrant status.

In 1922, the Missouri Synod’s English District organized its Committee on Church Architecture, and the synod created a synod-wide architecture committee the next year.771 The committee was engulfed by Gothic revivalism as its leading voice, Frederick Roth Webber, was influenced by several trips to England in which he studied Saxon and Norman church architecture.772 Webber edited the periodical Lutheran Church Art, in which he opined on various aspects of ecclesiastical architecture and offered advice to committees considering building a new church.

Webber, concerned with the “impressive ugliness of the Missouri Synod churches,” appealed for

770 Forster, 320-323. 771 Jay M. Price, Temples for a Modern God: Religious Architecture in Postwar America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 29. 772 Ibid., 29. 266 churches that facilitated their use in liturgical and sacramental worship rather than Protestant piety centered around the sermon.773 Webber’s activity indicates the connection between a revival of interest in ancient church architecture with the nascent liturgical movement, which reinvigorated interest in ancient liturgical practices which had since fallen into disuse.774

The centrality of the liturgy to Lutheran church architecture was emphasized through denominational architecture handbooks, such as Paul E. Kretzmann’s Christian Art in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship.775 Born in 1883, Kretzmann served as a Missouri Synod pastor in several states and college and seminary professor until he deemed his synod’s orthodoxy deficient and organized the Orthodox Lutheran Conference in 1951.776 A popular author, Kretzmann wrote a four volume commentary on the Bible, which is still considered standard by confessional Lutherans, and several books on liturgy. Christian Art was his most important work on church architecture, and, nearly a century after its publication, it is still referenced in confessional Lutheran seminaries. Kretzmann paralled Webber’s interest in reviving ancient Christian architecture and sought to locate Lutheran ecclesiatical architecture within the grand narrative of Christian development. He believed that Christianity had always inspired artwork in churches. The outliers were Puritans and the Reformed, whose “peculiar position…with regard to church paintings has done much to discourage artists.”777 In contrast, artwork was always central to Lutheranism. Unlike Reformed Protestants, the Lutherans were

773 Quoted in ibid., 30. 774 Ibid., 31. Concerning the liturgical movement, see Quill. 775 Paul E. Kretzmann, Christian Art in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921). 776 Christian Cyclopedia, s.v. “Paul E. Kretzmann.” Concerning the Orthodox Lutheran Conference, see Paul E. Kretzmann, “A Short History of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference,” Orthodox Lutheran Conference, http://www.concordialutheranconf.com/2010/02/22/a-short-history-of-the-orthodox-lutheran-conference. 777 Kretzmann, Christian Art in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship, 114. 267 “never an enemy of the arts” but rather “did not hesitate to enlist the aid of pure and beautiful art forms” in order “to confess its faith.”778

Kretzmann argued that church architecture was an expression of a congregation’s theology. Therefore, church architecture is confessional. Kretzmann wrote that “Since it [a church] is not a mausoleum, but a living record, it has an historical significance which often speaks to the descendants more plainly than the written document. The church that we build represents our love for our Church, our ambitions, aspirations, and hopes; its furniture and appointments speak a langauge which will tell later generations the entire situation as to our understanding of the essential requirements of a church building.”779 For Kretzmann, architectural style and theology were intertwined. Therefore, “It is necessary that the character of a Lutheran church edifice be expressed by every part of the building, both exterior and interior.”780 He identified three key aspects of Lutheranism which needed to be translated architecturally into the church edifice: preaching of the Word, administration of the sacraments, and prayer (which includes hymns).781

Since Lutheranism did not share evangelical Protestant theological positions on those issues, Luthearn churches should not resemble evangelical church buildings. Kretzmann pithily declared that “to be true, the church must be churchly.”782 It ought not resemble a clubhouse or theatre. When entering an evangelical church and beholding its design, Kretzmann believed that

“one is tempted to indulge in criticizing levity and to inquire when the performance is scheduled to begin and wonder whether programs are furnished with box seats only.”783 Churches

778 Ibid., 3-4. 779 Ibid., 132. 780 Ibid., 135. 781 Ibid., 133-134. 782 Ibid., 130. 783 Ibid., 140. 268 resembling a theatre reflected the anti-sacramental nature of their theology. According to

Kreztmann, placing an organ in the place of an altar as the focal point of a church interior, as many non-Lutheran Protestants did, communicates the notion that “the whole service depends on the congregation, and den[ies] the real presence in the Word and Sacraments.”784

In contrast, a Lutheran church, which “should express liturgical and confessional usage,” should give the Word and Sacraments preeminence in their design.785 Therefore, as opposed to evangelical architecture, there should be a sharp division between the nave and the apse “in order to give expression to the division of the liturgy in the sacrificial and sacramental parts of the service. Everything that pertains to the office of redemption, the reading of the Scripture lessons, the pronouncing of the , the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the

Sacraments, takes place in the apse,” whereas confession, singing, prayer, and other congregational acts are performed in the nave.786 The division in the church’s layout communicated Lutheranism’s high sacramentalism. Therefore, the altar is “the first piece of furniture in a Lutheran church,” since “The altar is the Lord’s table, where the great mystery of the communion of Christ’s body and blood, in a sacramental manner, with the bread and wine, is celebrated, and, through the consecrated elements, His communion with His people.”787 It must be visible from all parts of the nave so that every congregant can see what is occurring there during the Lord’s Supper. The pulpit should match the altar, since it is corresponds with the altar as the location of preaching, and likewise should be visible by all congregants.788 Since the

784 Ibid., 164. 785 Ibid., 141. 786 Ibid., 140. 787 Ibid., 174. 788 Ibid., 176-178. 269 means of grace are central to Lutheran worship, they must be the centerpoint of Lutheran architecture.

Lutheran churches, unlike other Protestant edifices, are conservative by nature. They should not be innovative. Rather, “The Lutheran Church is a product of reformation, not revolution, and therefore its church buildings should continue conservative traditions….”789

Therefore, Lutherans ought to utilize “one of the historically developed Christian styles of architecture.”790 Kretzmann had no use for “heathen styles,” such as ancient Greek or Moorish architecture, but argued that “The only styles that come into consideration at all are those which have been employed in the Christian Church since the second century.”791 While some ancient churches were designed as basilicas, Kreztmann deemed the style inappropriate, since it relied too heavily upon non-Christian sources of architecture.792 He likewise recommended against duplicating Renaissance architecture due to its “classical pagan element” and relationship with

Catholic ultramontanism. Instead, he believed that “The only styles…then can be considered with any degree of seriousness, are the Romanesque and the Gothic. Both styles are preeminently ecclesiastical styles, grown out of the spirit of the Church and imbued with its symbolism. They are dissociated from the profane.”793 Romanesque and Gothic churches, in Kretzmann’s view, prioritized the Word and Sacraments by severing relationships with the secular. If he rejected the basilica and Renaissance-inspired architecture as too pagan, he similarly rejected American

Protestant theatrical church designs because they replicated ostensibly secular, non-Christian forms of architecture. Kreztmann demanded that churches look “churchly.”794 From a Lutheran

789 Ibid., 134. 790 Ibid., 135. 791 Ibid., 142. 792 Ibid., 144. 793 Ibid., 145. 794 Ibid., 130. 270 perspective, this meant that church architecture communicates the sacraments’ centrality. The sacraments are half of the Augsburg Confession’s definition of the church, while they did not feature into evangelical conceptions of ecclesiology which emphasized a believers’ assembly.

Lacking a sacramental basis, evangelical architecture borrowed from secular sources and thus failed to distinguish itself from the world. However, according to Kretzmann, Lutheran sacramentalism precluded this approach to church architecture. Therefore, confessional Lutheran must distinguish itself from non-Lutheran Protestant church architecture as it separated itself from the world. For Kretzmann, architecture was confessional.

Kretzmann’s stance remains influential amongst confessional Lutheran pastors, who likely were exposed to his ideas during their seminary years. While no longer married to

Romanesque and Gothic revivals as a “pure” form of Christian architecture, theorists of confessional Lutheran architecture encourage congregations to look backwards in time for architectural inspiration while maintaining confessional fidelity through church design. While church design is ultimately a congregational decision, which prevents the formation of a singular confessional Lutheran style of architecture, synods and pastors provide various resources for church design committees which influence laypeople as they consider how their new church building will look. For instance, the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, which is a church financial service run by the Missouri Synod, includes an Architectural Advisory Committee, which consists of Lutheran architects and design experts who advise churches planning new buildings. The committee provides congregations with an architectural handbook intended to guide design committees and congregations towards constructing a distinctively Lutheran church.

271 The Architectural Handbook claims that there is not a single Lutheran style of architecture.795 In this regard, the handbook follows Kretzmann, who approved of several styles

(e.g., Romanesque and Gothic) as conducive to Lutheran theology. However, that does not mean that certain design decisions do not reflect Lutheran doctrine better than others: “God calls the church to be a meaningful witness for Christ to all people. Architecture is only one way to provide witness to His glory – but it is powerful.”796 In particular, the congregation should design its church building in accordance with its worship practices. Therefore, the Architecture

Advisory Committee recommends that congregations begin their building planning by studying

Lutheran worship and the characteristics that make it distinctive. Alongside the various rites of the Divine Service found in the Lutheran Service Book, the handbook recommends that the church design committee “Prepare a statement for the architect that explains the liturgical requirements for Communion, preaching, Holy Baptism and anything related to the use and arrangements for , organ, narthex, baptistery, bells, tower, choir robing and rehearsal rooms, etc.”797 Everything in the building ought to serve a theological purpose. The committee is advised to “Guard against sentimental and purely personal thinking. Reasons able to stand the test of faith and doctrine must support everything that meets the eye in the finished building. The setting should serve every worship experience. To succeed, the committee must be able to tell the architect the theological and physical requirements of every activity the church is to serve.”

The Missouri Synod expects its parishes’ design committees to be theologically astute. While, naturally, the pastor is often the driving force of the committee work, he cannot unilaterally force the congregation to go in a certain direction, since he lacks the official political power to do

795 Architectural Handbook (St. Louis: Lutheran Church Extension Fund, n.d.), 4. 796 Ibid., 4. 797 Ibid., 10. 272 so.798 Therefore, it is incumbent upon the pastor to train committee members and congregants with a basic understanding of how Lutheran church architecture reflects the tradition’s theology.

Frequently, a congregation’s architectural education will occur within the context of their

Adult Bible Class on Sunday morning. Led by the pastor or a qualified elder, the class is the setting for most of the parish’s adult education. Unless the pastor has done substantial research on church architecture, church design Bible studies rely heavily upon resources provided by synodical committees, such as the Missouri Synod’s Architectural Advisory Committee, or other pastors who have written papers or presented on the subject. The material is then distilled for a

45-50 minute class formatted for discussion. In 2016, Faith Lutheran Church, a Wisconsin Synod congregation in Tallahassee, Florida, began to plan a new church building, since the congregation had outgrown its present location. In order to prepare the congregation for the process, the church’s pastor, Joel Russow, offered a three week Bible study entitled “Church

Architecture: Theology and Doxology Symbolized.” In the first lesson, Russow argued that church architecture is necessarily distinct from other forms of architecture because of the church’s role as the gathering of God’s elect through the means of grace. Therefore, churches should not be designed just like another building. Rather, he argued, “form follows function follows faith.”799

He demonstrated how function follows faith in his second study, “Four Focal Points of

Lutheran Architecture.” Those four points were the altar, the pulpit or ambo, the baptismal font, and the “room of the people.” Though Russow cites current WELS pastors, the Lutheran

Confessions, and the Christian Worship Manual, which aids pastors’ worship planning,

798 Parish pastors are not given voting rights, and congregational matters are run according to a democratic voting system in which parish members make decisions at voters’ meetings. 799 Joel Russow, “Church Architecture: Theology and Doxology Symbolized, Lesson 1,” Faith Lutheran Church, handout (copy in author’s possession). 273 Kretzmann’s influence is noticeable. Russow’s four focal points echo the emphasis that

Kretzmann placed on the altar as the “first piece of furniture in a Lutheran church,” with the pulpit closely following in importance. For Russow, church architecture is confessional, as he quotes fellow WELS pastor Greg Otterstatter, who wrote that “Good church design does not just fill a building with many beautiful religious things. Good church design, particularly modern design, draws our attention to a few important things which symbolize the central truths of our faith. A church’s design is shaped by what its people believe. Confessional Lutheran theology leads to a design which has four centers of attention.”800 Therefore, since a church edifice is a confessional statement and ultimately is built to God’s glory, it does not behoove the church to design on the cheap. Referencing the biblical story of Mary washing Jesus’s feet with expensive oil, Russow argued that spending money for a beautiful church is not a selfish move but rather provided a witness to the community of God’s glory and biblical truth. The pastor included a discussion statement in his Bible study: “React – It is wasteful for a congregation to want to put significant time and monetary resources into a facility. It would be more useful pouring time and money into helping people.”801 The statement, placed after a discussion of Mary’s washing of

Jesus’s feet, was designed to elicit a negative answer from class. A beautiful church would draw people to visit the congregation and expose them to pure doctrine, thus drawing them closer to

Christ. Therefore, the choice between building a beautiful yet expensive edifice versus “helping people” was a false dichotomy, since a beautiful edifice might help save souls.

Lutheran church architecture distinctively reflects Lutheran theological principles. While this is commonsensical, it bears mentioning because Lutheran theology and worship practices

800 Quoted in Joel Russow, “Church Architecture: Theology and Doxology Symbolized, Lesson 2,” Faith Lutheran Church, handout (copy in author’s possession). 801 Joel Russow, “Church Architecture: Theology and Doxology Symbolized, Lesson 3,” Faith Lutheran Church, handout (copy in author’s possession). 274 differ significantly from those of many American Protestant churches, particularly evangelicalsm. While those traditions lack a sacramental emphasis, Lutheran worship revolves around sacraments. While a generation of historians have argued that Puritan and Reformed logocentrism masked the importance of material culture in those communities and the role it played in communicating theology, Reformed Protestantism, through its application of the regulative principle of worship, takes a dimmer view towards iconography in church buildings.

However, Lutheranism accepted religious imagery as adiaphora, which became mandatory which theological controversies arose, as was the case concerning statues and pictures. Thus,

Lutheran church architecture necessarily defines itself in opposition to its denominational competitors and actively communicates Lutheran distinctiveness, as the following case studies will demonstrate.

Resurrection Lutheran Church, Verona, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin, the home of the University of Wisconsin and the state’s capital, is well known as a party town and hotbed of progressive politics. The Sixties have never fully gone away. The mayor, Paul Soglin, gained local notoriety as a leader of the student anti-war movement during the Vietnam conflict, which catapulted him into the city council and several terms as mayor.802 Never one to ignore a good opportunity to protest something, tens of thousands of students and residents filled the Capitol in 2011 to protest Republican Governor

Scott Walker’s modifications of collective bargaining rights.803 Indeed, Madison’s penchant for

802 Paul Soglin is one of the characters profiled in , They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace in Vietnam and America, October 1967 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003). Concerning Madison in the Sixties, see Matthew Levin, Cold War University: Madison and the New Left in the Sixties, Studies in American Thought and Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). 803 Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness and the Rise of Scott Walker, Chicago Studies in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016). 275 protests is reflected in some of the city’s architecture. On State Street, the city’s main commercial district between the State Capitol and the University of Wisconsin campus, a

Walgreen’s pharmacy stands at a street corner. While not noteable in of itself, the business lacks windows. There are outlines on the façade indicating where windows once existed, but they have long since been bricked up. The owners of the business during the Sixties had been so tired of replacing broken windows after protests and riots that they gave up, figuring that debris could not smash through brick.

Despite Madison’s well-deserved reputation for leftist political activism, the city also has a hidden conservative streak which occassionally appears and shocks the locals. Religion often brings it out. In 2003, Robert Morlino was installed as the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of

Madison. While previous bishops avoided controversy, Morlino created it immediately. In 2004, the bishop, in his weekly column in the diocesan paper, wrote that, “The kind of community that we are seems to indicate a high comfort level with virtually no public morality.”804 Madisonians did not appreciate the sentiment. In 2009, Morlino fired a female parish associate for having advocated women’s ordination in a master’s thesis.805 Other religious conservatives abide in

Madison as well. On the city’s west side, Blackhawk Chuch, a megachurch associated with the

Evangelical Free Chuch, welcomes thousands of congregants to their “seeker friendly” yet doctrinally conservative worship services at several campuses scattered throughout the city.

Finally, in Verona, a suburb southwest of Madison, next to a popular city park where locals like to walk their dogs, sits Resurrection Lutheran Church, an unapologetic monument to confessional Lutheranism. Explicitly designed to reflect confessional Lutheran theology,

804 Robert Morlino, “Gambling: Assess what kind of community we are and want to be,” The Catholic Herald Online, February 5, 2004, http://www.madisoncatholicherald.org/2004-02-05/bishop.html. 805 Thomas C. Fox, “Madison’s Morlino noted for orthodoxy, controversy,” National Catholic Register, March 18, 2009, https://www.ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/madisons-morlino-noted-othodoxy-controversy. 276 Resurrection provides an example of the architectural style and also illuminates how conservative religion is expressed in an overwhelmingly liberal and ostensibly secular locale in the Midwest.

Travelling southwest out of Madison along U.S. Highway 151, the main thoroughfare between Madison and Dubuque, Iowa, one immediately arrives in the bustling suburb of Verona.

It was not always a suburb. Formerly a quiet village ten miles from the State Capitol, the town grew as Madison expanded. New subdivisions abound, supplying housing for employees of Epic

Systems, a major medical information company based there. Land formerly devoted to agriculture quickly became valuable property and was sold off for development. Verona’s expanding population made the area attractive for churches seeking to grow and expand their ministries in the region. Resurrection is the product of Madison’s suburban growth. Founded in

1996, Resurrection began as a “daughter” congregation of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, a large Wisconsin Synod congregation on Madison’s west side. A number of members travelled from the Verona area and suggested that the church “plant” a mission in their town. Our

Redeemer agreed, and their pastor began to hold services in rented space at a strip mall.806 When the pastor at Our Redeemer retired, the Verona group contacted the WELS’s Synod Board of

Missions, who took responsibility for the nascent exploratory congregation. Doug Tomhave, a newly minted graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, was called to serve as their pastor in

May 1998, and the congregation named themselves “Resurrection.”

Though Resurrection was Tomhave’s first parish, he was not foreign to the world of home mission, as the Wisconsin Synod terms its domestic expansion program. His father, Duane

Tomhave, had served as a mission pastor in Arizona and Michigan before heading the synod’s

806 Douglas Tomhave, Resurrection Lutheran Church: The First Ten Years of Our Facility (Verona, WI: Resurrection Lutheran Church, 2016), 2. 277 Board of World Missions. When he arrived in Verona, Doug Tomhave began holding services,

Bible studies, and church meetings in his basement before the congregation found new rental space at an office building.807 Meanwhile, Tomhave and his thirty or so congregants sought to expand their church through a series of outreach events in the community, such as participation in Verona’s Hometown Days Parade.808 In 2001, Resurrection began a stewardship campaign in order to raise funds for property and a church building. Finally, in 2003, the church purchased seven acres of land for $150,000 on County Highway PB, a few miles south of Verona’s sprawling neighborhoods but clearly in the direction of future growth.809

In 2004, Resurrection formed its building committee. Before they began to interview potential architects, the congregation approved a resolution providing guidelines for the building project:

This church building is dedicated to be a declaration of faith by the members of Resurrection Lutheran Church. This building is an affirmation in wood and stone, steel and glass, of our steadfast resolve to believe, teach, and confess the saving truth of the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. Therefore we as a body of believers resolve: To design a sanctuary by which we offer our best to God in displaying our Lutheran heritage by its appearance and architecture and sharing with all people the biblical truths on which our Christian faith, life, and hope are based. This resolution is to guide us in the entire planning and construction process so that we build a beautiful and deliberately Lutheran Church. May our merciful God bless the House we build, to his glory, so that long after we are gone, our children’s children may here encounter the Lord who graciously comes to his people in Word and Sacrament.810

The congregation’s building resolution was a confessional statement. Resurrection was not going to be just another church. Rather, its architecture would exude confessional Lutheranism.

807 Ibid., 2. 808 Ibid., 3. 809 Ibid., 3. 810 Douglas Tomhave, “Church Architecture: Building Deliberately Lutheran,” Worship the Lord 22 (November 2006): 1. 278 Believing that the Word and Sacraments were the central elements of worship, the church building would reflect liturgical worship. Though Resurrection’s resolution was composed by members of the congregation, it was not fully original to them.811 Pastor Tomhave and the building committee was inspired by a Missouri Synod parish nearly 1,200 miles to the southwest.

In 2000, Our Savior Lutheran Church, a Missouri Synod congregation, was constructed in Houston, Texas. Hardly a region closely associated with Lutheranism, Our Savior sought to stand out in a city full of evangelical churches. As the congregation prepared for expansion and a new church building, church leaders commenced an in-depth study of Lutheran church architecture. For Laurence White, Our Savior’s senior pastor, the new building was going to be a conscious rebellion against American Christianity. Explaining the new church’s design, White wrote: “In much of modern Christendom the focus has deliberately turned from God to man.

Religion has become just one more dimension of humanity’s obsession with itself. This shift is encouraged as the path to success, the only way to bring in the bodies and the bucks necessary to build a mega-church around a popular, high profile clergy celebrity.”812 White envisioned a church that would be “a declaration of faith by the members of Our Savior Lutheran Church. It is our affirmation in wood and stone, steel and glass, of our steadfast resolve to believe, teach and confess the saving Truth of the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions….The design of this building is the embodiment of that which we believe about God, His people, and their interaction in the

Divine Service.”813 Pastor White’s desires reflected his congregation’s resolution at the beginning of the building project: “To design a sanctuary whose external appearance and internal arrangement distinctively express our commitment to the doctrinal heritage of the Lutheran

811 Douglas Tomhave, interview with the author, April 26, 2016. 812 Laurence L. White, To The Glory of God and the Salvation of Man (Houston: Our Savior Lutheran Church, 2000), 3-4. 813 Ibid., 4. 279 Church and are consistent with architectural expressions of that theology in historic Lutheran church buildings both in Europe and in the United States.”814

White succeeded. Our Savior derived their church’s design from a number of seventeenth century Lutheran churches in Germany that they believed best represented orthodox Lutheran theology, though the church’s main inspiration was the Lutheran Frauenkirche in Dresden. Built octagonally in order to symbolize the eighth day, which is typically associated with Christ’s resurrection, the interior sanctuary focuses on a Kanzelaltar, which combines the pulpit and altar into one architectural feature with the pulpit placed above the altar. Just as, in Lutheran theology, the Word and Sacraments are equal, cooperating means of grace, the altar and pulpit share centrality in the church’s design. The baptismal font, again shaped as an octagon, is capped with a statue of St. John the Baptist facing and kneeling towards the Kanzelaltar, the locus of Christ’s presence.815 The church’s architect did not design this fully on his own but rather was inspired by similar artwork by Lucas Cranach, an influential Lutheran artist from the Reformation.816 Statues and images of the Trinity, saints, biblical figures and scenes, and Reformation heroes are omnipresent throughout Our Savior’s campus. Despite the congregation’s size, one could hardly mistake it for yet another Texas megachurch.

Our Savior served as an architectural and theological inspiration for Resurrection.

Though Resurrection had a much smaller membership and even smaller budget, Tomhave and the congregants were convinced of the value of designing their church as a witness to confessional Lutheran theology. Resurrection’s congregational resolution, which closely follows the wording from White’s book and Our Savior’s building resolution, reflected this. However,

814 Ibid., 4. 815 Ibid., 38. 816 Ibid., 38. 280 while Our Savior repristinated church architecture from the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy in order to stand out against Texan evangelicalism, Tomhave wanted his church to combine traditional

Lutheran and contemporary architectural concerns so that the church would appeal to modern eyes.817 While truth was found in its purest form in the Book of Concord, the faith did not stagnate in 1580. Architecture developed and needed to draw people to Christ.818 This was particularly the case in the Madison area, given the large number of religiously nonaffiliated residents. Therefore, Resurrection needed to find an architectural firm which both understood liturgical worship and did not simply replicate antique architecture. After a series of interviews, the church hired the Groth Design Group in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Groth Design Group is a general architectural firm which has designed numerous business buildings, civic centers, and churches throughout the Midwest. However, the churches they designed are primarily churches that emphasize liturgical worship, such as Lutheran, Catholic, Episcopalian, and United Church of Christ congregations.819 Therefore, there would be no danger of the architect trying to foist an evangelical design upon Resurrection. Tomhave and the congregation were pleased with the result, as Tomhave wrote in a guidebook explaining the church’s architecture: “An analogy might go like this: The architect designed a Cadillac, the builder would scale back with cost and value. The result was that we ended up with a nice Buick with leather interior. Excellence without unnecessary extravangance.”820 Finally, on December 11, 2005, the first Divine Service was held in Resurrection’s new building.

817 Douglas Tomhave, interview with the author. 818 Ibid. 819 Groth Design Group, “Religious Projects,” http://gdg-architects.com/type/religious. 820 Douglas Tomhave, A Guide to the Building, Furniture, and Art of Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church (Verona, WI: Resurrection Lutheran Church, 2016), 1. 281 Resurrection, like many non-urban Wisconsin Synod congregations, is a regional parish.

Since Wisconsin Synod Lutherans only worship at Wisconsin Synod churches, and Verona is on suburban Madison’s outer edge, the parish drew a number of WELS Lutherans from surrounding communities. Some members drove as far as a half-hour one way to attend since their community lacked a WELS church. However, most members of Resurrection live in Verona,

Madison, or Fitchburg (Madison’s southern suburb). Approaching the church from Highway PB from the north, one comes to the crest of a tall hill with an expansive view of the area.

Immediately, one’s eyes are drawn to Resurrection. Aside from a few houses and barns, it is the only major building in the vicinity. Additionally, Resurrection is at the top of an adjoining ridge, granting it additional visual prominence. As one makes the left turn to drive to the church, one passes a dog park. The park is the frequent subject of jokes amongst Resurrection’s membership, since the the park sees an uptick of visitorship on Sunday mornings while services are held further up the road at Resurrection. However, the park also reminds congregants of their community’s liberal attitude towards religion and why Resurrection exists, namely to serve

Madison through the Word and Sacraments. In 2017, the church added a massive stained glass window of Jesus on the sanctuary’s western side, facing the dog park. Though, of course, the window’s subject matter is discernible from the sanctuary’s interior, it is more clearly visible from the outside. According to Resurrection’s current pastor, Nathan Strutz, one of the reasons for this was to witness Christ to people travelling along Highway PB or walking their dogs at the dog park – especially on Sunday mornings.821

Resurrection’s confessional Lutheranism is communicated even before one enters the church bulding. Approaching the front door, one’s eyes are drawn to the letters “U.A.C.,” which

821 Nathan Strutz (pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church, Verona, Wisconsin), interview with the author, May 21, 2016. 282 are chiseled deeply into a mantle stone immediately above the entrance. The acronym stands for the “Unaltered Augsburg Confession.” In 1540, Melanchthon, one of Luther’s disciples, changed some of the verbage concerning the Lord’s Supper in the Augsburg Confession in order to make it more acceptable to Reformed theologians. However, Melanchthon’s opponents, the Gneiso-

Lutherans (or “true Lutherans”), opposed him and upheld the “unaltered” Augsburg Confession, which eventually was included in the Book of Concord in 1580. Though no church body subscribes to the Altered Augsburg Confession, “U.A.C.” stands as a watchword for an uncompromising attitude towards doctrine. Resurrection included the mantle stone to indicate that “we, as a congregation, expect to hear the old Lutheran faith: grace alone, faith alone,

Scripture alone. We are a church that seeks to clearly confess the Bible’s saving truths. People have tried to alter these precious doctrines throughout the years. May these clearly written confessions remain ‘unaltered’ among us for years to come!”822 While the “U.A.C.” inscription used to be common on Lutheran churches, it has become less frequent. Therefore, many visitors ask about it, giving the pastor a chance to explain Lutheranism’s approach to doctrine.823

After entering the narthex and walking through a door underneath a wooden mantle inscribed with a and the phrases “Sola Gratia,” “Sola Fides,” and “Sola Scriptura,” the visitor enters into the sancutary (see Figure 5.3). The sanctuary’s design accentuates the means of grace by making the baptismal font, ambo, and altar its focal points. High ceilings and gables are used in order to point “our attention up” to God.824 In order to find a seat, one must pass by the baptismal font, which is shaped as an octagon. Inside the font, water is constantly flowing, representing Christ’s “living water.”825 A pathway leads from the baptismal font

822 Tomhave, A Guide to the Building, Furniture, and Art of Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2-3. 823 Nathan Strutz. 824 Tomhave, A Guide to the Building, Furniture, and Art of Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4. 825 Ibid., 8. 283 towards the altar. The altar is freestanding. In his explanation of the church architecture,

Tomhave is quick to note that this was not inspired by Catholic post-Vatican II church architecture, which favored free stranding altars rather than those placed against the chancel wall. Rather, this is a decidedly Lutheran practice, since “the free-standing altar was invented by

Martin Luther for the Torgau Chapel where Luther himself delivered the dedication sermon in

1544.”826 The altar “was also constructed to look like a sepulcher,” which reminds parishioners of Christ’s sacrifical death.827 On top of the altar is a mensa, which “hangs over the sepulcher about 12-15 inches all around to give the visual of a table.”828 This points towards the Lord’s

Supper, the meal through which God pronounces the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice upon members. On the mensa’s surface are a total of five crosses, four at the corners and one in the center, which symbolize the five wounds Christ received on the cross.829 To the left of the altar is the ambo, which is a combination of a pulpit and a . The combined usage of the ambo represents the unity of the Word. Also, “The ambo is strategically placed on the structural line that follows the backbone of our building. The picture is that the Word – read and proclaimed – is the backbone of our ministry. Sola Scriptura.”830 Even the church’s seating is designed to give the means of grace preeminence. The sanctuary’s 110 degree seating pattern “literally allows people to surround the Word and Sacraments.”831

The focus on the means of grace is not restricted solely to the altar, ambo, and baptismal font but also permeates the imagery employed within the sanctuary. Behind the altar stands a triptych (see Figure 5.4). A triptrych is a three-paneled painting that relates a biblical story.

826 Ibid., 5. 827 Ibid., 5. 828 Ibid., 5. 829 Ibid., 5. 830 Ibid., 8. 831 Ibid., 4. 284 Tomhave was inspired to include it after seeing one at Faith Lutheran Church, a Wisconsin

Synod congregation in Antioch, Illinois, which was pastored by his brother-in-law.832

Resurrection commissed Avignon Art Studio, which is operated in Racine, Wisconsin, by

Nathan Pope, a retired WELS pastor, and his daughter Melanie Pope Schuette, to produce several panels for the triptych, which allows the church to rotate the panels according to the liturgical calendar. The central panel, displaying the empty tomb while Jesus comforts Mary following his resurrection, remains constant throughout the year. The side panels, however, change and are specific to various seasons, such as a for Christmas, Magi following the Bethlehem star for , and frightened centurions during Easter. Since the resurrection scene is the central panel and is perpetually present, the triptych is closed for and then reopened on Easter morning.833 Frequently, characters in the triptych panels stare directly at the congregation, including them in the biblical narrative. The triptych is not the only imagery found in the church. Three stained glass windows (of four planned) depict the means of grace. Above the ambo is a window depicting Jesus preaching from a boat. To the left of the ambo is a stained glass window showing Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist (see Figure

5.5). The stained glass window is directly in line with the baptismal font (see Figure 5.6). In

2016, the stained glass of window of Jesus, facing the dog park, was added. The final window remaining to be installed represents the Lord’s Supper.

Resurrection’s church design fulfilled the congregational resolution’s mandate to reflect the primacy of the Word and Sacraments in confessional Lutheranism, and it has since become recognized as a model of confessional Lutheran architecture within the Wisconsin Synod. In

2007, the WELS Connection, a five minute news video that highlights various ministries in the

832 Doug Tomhave, interview with the author. 833 Tomhave, a Guide to the Building, Furniture, and Art of Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church, 7. 285 Wisconsin Synod and is shown in every congregation in the synod, filmed an episode on

Resurrection’s architecture. Also, synodical periodicals have highlighted the church design’s attention to theology. Since 2006, three articles in synod-wide publications for pastors have highlighted how Resurrection connected theology and architecture. The first article, written by

Doug Tomhave in 2006, argued that new churches should be designed and built “deliberately

Lutheran.”834 Tomhave recounted a story of a child’s reaction to the opening of the triptych at the church’s dedication service. When the child asked if the radiant figure talking to Mary was

God, her father answered, “That’s God’s Son, Jesus.” His daughter responded, “Dad, he’s beautiful!”835 The pastor also told another story of an individual’s encounter with Resurrection’s design. This time, a prospective member’s family was impressed by the artwork. When a high school aged girl noted the five inlaid crosses on the altar’s mensa, Tomhave told her, “The five blood wood crosses represent the five wounds of Christ. The altar represents Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. The triptych image shows us the . Jesus died and now lives for you.

This is the hope that we have.” Awestruck, the girl responded, “Wow, this is cool.”836 The theologically intricate design made her “an eyewitness to God’s greatest gift.”837 Through these stories, Tomhave illustrated how church design is a form of catechesis, as people will ask about various features of church building, and the pastor or knowledgeable church members can reply by explaining Lutheran doctrine to the inquirer. As Tomhave wrote, “Our goal was a church that

. . . worships and teaches well.”838

834 Douglas Tomhave, “Church Architecture: Building Deliberately Lutheran,” 1. 835 Ibid. 1. 836 Ibid. 2. 837 Ibid. 2. 838 Ibid. 1. 286 Tomhave admitted that there “is no one right answer” to the question “What does it mean to be ‘deliberately Lutheran’” in one’s church architecture, but, in his opinion, it required a focus on the means of grace. As Resurrection was designed, the design committee “desired a worship space that not only highlighted the Means of Grace but actually used different architectural features to teach how God works.”839 In order to accomplish this, one needs an architect “that not only specialized in churches but also understood conservative Lutheran theology.”840 Tomhave detailed the sacramental symbolism included in Resurrection’s design. Since the means of grace are God’s gifts to the church, they should be central to Lutheran church design. Moreover, they distinguish Lutherans from other Christians, a point that Tomhave made in a 2009 article in

Worship the Lord, a worship-centered newsletter intended for Wisconsin Synod pastors, entitled

“Sacraments: ‘Liturgical Tack-ons or Life of the Church?” The sacraments, according to

Tomhave, pre-date modern, evangelical formulas for church growth: “Long before mandatory immersions or ages of accountability, God spoke with water, ‘I baptize you in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Long before Barna and ministry best-sellers advised the church on what ‘to do’ in worship, Jesus said with bread and wine, ‘Take and eat.

Take and drink. This is my body. This is my blood. Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.’”841

Confessional Lutheranism’s sacramental focus makes Tomhave conclude that “we

Lutherans are simply different from many of the ‘popular’ churches in town.”842 If Christians desire a worship that is “visual, upbeat, exciting, emotional, practical, and personal,”

Lutheranism is not usually the place they will look. However, that is a mistake, according to

839 Ibid. 1. 840 Ibid. 1. 841 Doug Tomhave, “Sacraments: ‘Liturgical Tack-ons or Life of the Church?’”, Worship the Lord 37 (July 2009): 1. 842 Ibid., 1. 287 Tomhave, since the means of grace, and their context within the Divine Service, provide all of those things and more. God saves through the Word and Sacraments, and he provides precisely what every sinner needs. Therefore, they “fulfill these needs [visual, upbeat, exciting, emotional, etc.] – and more – both physically and spiritually. God has chosen to limit himself to these means of grace for good reason, because they are all that we need. God takes his past actions in

Christ, brings it [sic] tangibly into our present, and guarantees our eternal future. The Sacraments give a heartbeat to the Christian and keep the Church of Christ washed and well-fed.”843 Since

Lutheran sacramental theology is different, every aspect of a church building should reflect that difference. Tomhave ends his article by asking, “Will first time visitors immediately perceive that this church centers on a means of grace ministry? This does not mean they will understand it, but questions can open doors.”844

On January 17, 2016, Resurrection held a special service commemorating the tenth anniversary of their building’s dedication. Doug Tomhave, who had left Resurrection in 2010 to accept a call to pastor a mission congregation in suburban Atlanta, returned to preach. The scripture lessons focused on images of building, whether it was the physical construction of the temple in Jerusalem or the the spiritual construction of God’s church through adoption into

Christ’s body. The gospel lesson, which served as the sermon text, came from Matthew 16, when

Peter confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, and Jesus declared that Satan would never overcome the rock upon which the church is built.845 Tomhave’s sermon focused on how “Christ is building Resurrection Lutheran Church” by revealing his truth through the Word, when believers confess Christ through worship and architecture, and when they are forgiven through

843 Ibid., 2. 844 Ibid., 2. 845 “Christ is Building Resurrection Lutheran Church,” Resurrection Lutheran Church, January 17, 2016, worship bulletin (copy in author’s possession). 288 the means of grace. While Tomhave’s sermon ostensibly focused on Matthew 16, Resurrection’s church building was the sermon text as well. Every other year, the congregation holds a special

Divine Service aimed to highlight the theology behind the church’s design.

Resurrection’s architecture preaches. When asked if the church’s design was a response to Madison’s liberalism, Doug Tomhave demurred.846 However, the church was built with an eye towards coaxing questions from non-Lutheran visitors. Indeed, the stained glass window of

Jesus, more clearly visible to Sunday morning strollers at the dog park than the congregants worshipping in the sanctuary, symbolizes the church’s relationship with its surroundings.

Resurrection’s architecture is an exercise in evangelism by distinguishing the congregation from other churches in the community (such as evangelical megachurches) and offering opportunities to explain the Lutheran faith as a response to inquiries about various aspects of the church’s design. Centered on the Word and Sacraments, Resurrection is an anti-megachurch designed to be contemporary yet traditional. Inspired by similar projects, Resurrection serves as a prime model of confessional Lutheran architecture with a sacramental focus and catechetical potential.

Confessoinal Lutheran College Chapels in Minnesota

When one decideds to become a pastor in the Wisconsin Synod or the Evangelical

Lutheran Synod, one normally does not go straight from a secular college to the synods’ seminaries. Rather, future pastors follow certain educational tracks which begin, for Wisconsin

Synod members, in high school. Based on the Germans’ specialized education system, junior high students who are considering either pastoral ministry or teaching ministry ideally attend

846 Doug Tomhave, interview with the author. 289 Luther Preparatory School, a boarding school in Watertown, Wisconsin.847 There they study a normal high school curriculum alongside Latin, German, and Bible classes, and students get extra opportuntities to test their ministerial vocations through volunteer work and frequent engagement with seminarians and ministers. If, after graduating from Luther Prep, the student still feels called to serve in parish ministry, then he or she matriculates to , a four year pre-seminary and teacher training college in New Ulm, Minnesota. Martin Luther

College is not a denominational liberal arts college. Rather, students attending there are preparing for callings in the Wisconsin Synod as parochial school teachers or as pastors.

Therefore, the college’s student body is religiously monochromatic. All students are members of the Wisconsin Synod or other synods in fellowship with the WELS. Therefore, with very few exceptions, nearly all Wisconsin Synod called workers have spent ample time worshiping in the college’s chapel during their undergraduate years. The case is similar with the Evangelical

Lutheran Synod. Though the ELS lacks a ministry-focused boarding school like Luther

Preparatory School, nearly all of their future ministers and teachers attend Bethany Lutheran

College in Mankato, Minnesota. In 1993, Bethany dedicated their new chapel, Trinity Chapel, while Martin Luther College built their Chapel of the Christ in 2010. Since both chapels are used primarily by their colleges’ students, their Lutheran church architecture serves as models and influences for future called workers who may need to build new church buildings during their ministries.

Bethany Lutheran College sits atop a bluff overlooking the city of Mankato and the

Minnesota River valley. A small liberal arts college, Bethany’s presence in the community pales

847 In the Wisconsin Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the position of a parochial school teacher in any subject is considered to be a called position rather than a normal contracted position. Colloquially, teachers and ministers are referred to as “called workers.” 290 in comparison to Minnesota State University, which is many times larger than Bethany and boasts a Division I hockey program (which Bethany lacks). Additionally, unlike nearby Martin

Luther College, the college is not strictly intended for called teachers or pre-seminary students but rather intends to provide its students with a confessional Lutheran liberal arts education. The town has two claims to Minnesotan fame. First, Mankato was the site of the largest mass execution in American history. In 1862, in the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War, the U.S. government ordered 38 Dakotas hung on the banks of the Minnesota River.848 Today, a massive monument, listing the names of the executed, memorializes the event in Reconciliation Park.

Second, the city is home to the Minnesota Vikings’ summer training camp. However, Mankato is also noteworthy for its religious diversity. Nearly every Lutheran denomination is represented in some form or another in the community. The Evangelical Lutheran Synod (which is headquartered there), the Wisconsin Synod, the Missouri Synod, the mainline Evangelical

Lutheran Church in America, the Church of the Lutheran Confession (which thought that the

WELS was too slow to break fellowship with the Missouri Synod in the 1950s), the Evangelical

Lutheran Diocese of North America, the Lutheran Church in Mission for Christ, the Association of Free Lutheran Churches, and several others have congregations or house groups in the region.

Lutheranism’s omnipresence in the community is symbolized by Trinity Chapel’s towering steeple, which, from its standpoint atop the bluff, which peers up and down the river valley.

Unlike the Wisconsin Synod, which traditionally has been an ethnically German denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod traces its rooted to Norwegian immigrants who settled in southern Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and southern Minnesota in the late nineteenth century. Despite its heritage, the Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in

848 See Scott W. Berg, 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End (New York: Vintage, 2012). 291 America maintained close ties to the Missouri Synod. Ulrik Vilhelm Koren, who pastored the

Norwegian Lutheran parish in Washington Prairie, Iowa, for fifty years, corresponded with C. F.

W. Walther frequently regarding theological matters, and the Missouri and Norwegian Synods exchanged professors at their respective seminaries for a time.849 However, doctrinal debates concerning predestination split the Norwegians, which resulted in the “Anti-Missourian

Brotherhood” leaving the Norwegian Synod. In 1917, in the midst of World War I and a revival of Norwegian nationalism, the various Norwegian synods in the United States sought to unite into one body, the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. However, some thought that the union ignored theological differences and refused to participate. Thus, in 1918, in Lake Mills,

Iowa, the Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (sometimes called the

“Little Norwegian Synod” or the “Little Synod on the Prairie”) was organized.850 In 1957, the church body renamed itself the “Evangelical Lutheran Synod.” As the synod established itself, it purchased the former campus of Bethany Ladies College, which the Norwegians converted into

Bethany Lutheran College. While, unlike Martin Luther College, the student body is not exclusively Lutheran, most students are either ELS or WELS Lutherans.

Trinity Chapel stands in the middle of campus. Even if a student tried to avoid the chapel, he or she could not, since it was constructed as a part of the campus courtyard and is immediately across from the college’s library, cafeteria, bookstore, and main offices. During the academic year, the chapel is used on a daily basis, as the college has a chapel period in which the college chaplain gives short sermons. Approaching the chapel from the road, Trinity Chapel’s

849 Concerning the relationship between the Missouri Synod and the early Norwegian Synod, see Erling T. Teigen, “The Book of Concord and Confessional Subscription among Norwegian Lutherans – Norway and America,” in The American Book of Concord, 80-96. 850 Concerning the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, see Grace for Grace: Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Mankato, MN: Lutheran Synod Book Company, 1943), and J. Herbert Larson and Juul B. Madson, Built On The Rock: The Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Seventy-Fifth Anniversary, 1918-1993 (Mankato, MN: Lutheran Synod Book Company, 1992). 292 identity is clear. If someone did not see the massive steeple, he or she would be greeted by a relief sculpture of the Trinity, which was placed on the chapel’s eastern exterior wall (see Figure

5.7). In the sculpture, all three persons of the Trinity are represented. As the Father’s presence is revealed through lightning at the top of the relief, a dove, depicting the Holy Spirit, descends while Jesus, with arms extended, ascends to heaven. Aside from the steeple and the relief sculpture, the chapel’s exterior is plainly decorated. The chapel’s gradually angled roof is intended to represent a boat, a common Christian image used to describe the Church, and also hearkens to the college’s Norwegian heritage, as the roof style is typical to older churches in

Scandinavia.

Immediately as one enters the narthex, one is greeted by a baptismal font. As was the case at Resurrection Lutheran Church, the font’s placement, at the church’s entrance and directly in line with the altar, represents one’s entrance into the Christian Church and receptance of faith.851 Other aspects of the design and its theological symbolism, though, are more subtle. If one looks carefully, one will notice that he or she is surrounded by threes. Since the chapel is dedicated to the Trinity, trinitarian symbols abound, even in unsuspecting places. For instance, triangles were crafted into the chapel’s metal railing (see Figure 5.8). In the chapel’s sanctuary, different types of brick partition the wall into three lines which surround the worshippers.

Additionally, the altar is three levels above where worshippers sit (see Figure 5.9). Finally, all of the stained glass windows, which line the walls, represent the creative power of the Trinity both physically forming of heaven and earth as well as spiritually creating life in Christians through the Word and Sacraments.852 Trinitiarian symbolism is everywhere.

851 “Trinity Chapel,” Bethany Lutheran College, brochure (copy in author’s possession). 852 Ibid. 293 Similar to Resurrection, the means of grace are central to Trinity Chapel’s design. The building’s main focal point is altar. Constructed against the chancel, the altar’s position forces the pastor to face God rather than the people when saying prayers or consecrating the Lord’s

Supper. Additionally, the pastor and congregation face , thus rejecting the liturgical reforms instituted in the Second Vatican II and suggested by Martin Luther. Aside from the altar, the main focal point of the chapel is the triptych, which, like at Resurrection, stands above the altar. Designed by William Bukowski, who served as the chairman of Bethany Lutheran

College’s Art Department, the triptych contains five panels (see Figure 5.9). The panels narrate the story of Jesus’ life. When opened, the left panel depicts the nativity scene. The center panel illustrates Jesus’ crucifixion, which is followd on the right by the risen Christ on Easter morning.

When closed, both panels combined show Jesus talking with Mary and Martha, from which the phrase “one thing is needful,” Bethany Lutheran College’s motto, derives.853

The design of Trinity Chapel is traditional yet subtle. The means of grace are central to the design, but they are not blatant as at Resurrection Lutheran Church. Perhaps this is the case because Trinity is a Lutheran college chapel intended for predominantly Lutheran students from

Minnesota, a state densely populated with Lutherans. Therefore, while the college chaplain does evangelize non-Christian students, it serves a different purpose than a local congregation. Trinity

Chapel is a traditional Lutheran church building which reflects its synod’s Scandinavian heritage. Seminarians, who study down the street at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary, worship at the chapel with the college students every weekday and thus engage with the building

853 In Luke 11:38-42, Jesus is hosted by Martha. While Martha was consumed with household chores, her sister Mary sat and listened to Jesus. When Martha voiced her annoyance with Mary’s perceived inattention, Jesus answered her, “But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Bethany Lutheran College chose enos estin chreia, which is Greek for “one thing is needful,” as its motto, interpreting the phrase to mean that the “one thing [that] is needful” is listening to God’s Word like Mary. 294 on a daily basis. Through their interaction with Trinity Chapel, seminarians are reminded of the basics of traditional Lutheran architecture. Trinity Chapel’s subtle traditionalism “looks like a church,” as Paul Kretzmann desired. In a world of megachurches and 1960s architecture, Trinity offers an alternative.

Martin Luther College’s Chapel of the Christ is signficantly less subtle than Trinity

Chapel. Almost thirty miles northwest of Mankato, New Ulm is a small, quiet town with enough

Germans to support two German restaurants and Schell’s Brewery, which is locally famous for the peacocks which freely roam around the brewery grounds. Ironically, a town founded by freethinking German revolutionaries has since become a citadal of one of the most conservative brands of confessional Lutheranism. Founded in 1884 as Dr. Martin Luther College as the

Wisconsin Synod’s college for future pastors and teachers in Minnesota, Martin Luther College was formed in 1995 when the old college and Northwestern College, a WELS pre-seminary college in Watertown, Wisconsin, merged. Like Bethany Lutheran College, Martin Luther

College sits on a bluff overlooking the Minnesota River valley. Unlike Bethany, though, the college is not the most prominent feature on the bluff. Rather, a massive statue of Hermann, the ancient German warrior who slaughered the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, sits northwest of the campus and dominates New Ulm’s skyline.

The Chapel of the Christ was dedicated in April 2010 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Wisconsin Synod’s organization. College administrators had deemed the previous chapel, located in the college’s music hall, insufficient for the student body, and they wanted a chapel that was more distinctively Lutheran. The old chapel had been last renovated in 1968, and it reflected the era’s architectural style.854 In 1997, the Wisconsin Synod’s 150th Anniversary

854 “Martin Luther College Groundbreaking Service, May 16, 2008,” Martin Luther College, bulletin (copy in the author’s possession). 295 Committee began to solicit funds for a new chapel at the college, and in 1999 they set a goal for a $8 million campaign for the new chapel.855 However, the project was delayed until 2006 due to the synod’s financial problems. Finally, in 2007, Martin Luther College’s Governing Board approved completion of the project on a budget of $7.5 million.856 Therefore, they commissioned

Plunkett Raysich Architects, a firm based in Wisconsin, to design a new chapel. The architectural firm does not specialize in churches, but it had substantial experience designing

Lutheran and Catholic churches throughout the Upper Midwest. Therefore, they understood how to design a building conducive to liturgical worship and with a sacramental focus. To that end,

Martin Luther College followed Tomhave’s advice to choose an architect who understood

Lutheran theology.

The college dedicated its new chapel on April 10, 2010. The Divine Service focused on the building’s architecture. The baptismal font, altar, ambo, and organ were dedicated with special prayers which reflected their role in worship. Each of the prayers included a sentence or two which reminded the congregation of Lutheran theology regarding infant baptism, Christ’s real presence in the Lord’s Supper, the saving and creative nature of the Word, and the organ’s eschatological role in “prepar[ing] us on earth to sing your praises in heaven.”857 The sermon, offered by the synod president, focused on how the chapel was meant to be a place where the

Word was proclaimed and future teachers and pastors would learn the Word they themselves would teach and preach in their future callings.858 The Wisconsin Synod intended for its chapel to mold future called workers and instill in them a love for Lutheran liturgical worship.

855 Ibid. 856 Ibid. 857 “Martin Luther College, Chapel of the Christ Dedication,” Martin Luther College, bulletin (copy in the author’s possession). 858 Ibid. 296 The Chapel of the Christ sits near the center of campus. Unlike Trinity Chapel, the

Chapel of the Christ does not look like a traditional Lutheran church. Though it is cruciform, the chapel is decidedly contemporary (see Figure 5.11). Passing through the narthex, which is filled with cubbies in which students place their backpacks and coats during chapel servics, one is immediately greeted by the means of grace as he or she enters the sanctuary (see Figure 5.12). In front of the door stands the baptismal font. Reminiscent of the one at Resurrection Lutheran

Church in Verona, the font is octagonal in order to symbolize the eighth day, which “marks the beginning of the new creation in Christ, which culminates in eternity.”859 Also, the water in the font is always moving, representing Christ’s “living water.” The baptismal font’s location at the chapel’s entrance indicates the chapel’s sacramental focus. From the front door, one can see the font, altar, ambo, and crucifix in direct alignment. This was intended to illustrate that the “focus of Lutheran worship is the gospel of Christ in Word and Sacrament.”860 Much like Resurrection, the Chapel of the Christ was intended to be a confessional Lutheran sermon in stone.

The chapel’s distinctively Lutheran sacramental focus continues in the chancel. There, the prominent features include an altar, triptych, ambo, and painted crucifix hanging over the altar (see Figure 5.13). Nearly all of the chancel’s artwork was created by Nathan Pope and

Melanie Pope Schuette, the same pair who crafted the triptych at Resurrection. Pope wrote that the Chapel of the Christ’s chancel “represents the King of kings and Lord of lords, that special

‘room’ in every church and chapel where God’s law and gospel define his will. Here is where every furnishing helps visualize the beauty of God’s love for poor, miserable sinners.”861 Thus, they spared no effort to decorate it and incorporate symbolism into the artwork. The ambo, like

859 “Chapel of the Christ,” Martin Luther College, pamphlet (copy in the author’s possession). 860 Ibid. 861 Ibid. 297 that at Resurrection, combines the purposes of a pulpit and lectern. The altar is intricately designed and is constructed out of wood and stone, representing Christ’s cross and his title of

“the Rock.”862 On the front of the altar are three images representing the trinitarian imagery of

Revelation 5. Though it appears to be stonework, it is really painted on the altar as a trompe l’oeil. On top of the altar’s mensa are five crosses representing Christ’s five wounds. While four of the crosses are obvious, placed at the corners of the mensa, the fifth is much more subtle. At the center of the mensa, a sacrifical lamb is depicted in mosaic laid upon an altar. Its feet are tied, making the fifth cross (see Figure 5.14). The lamb is surrounded by a mandorla made of two different woods, which represent Christ’s human and divine natures.863 Finally, the word

“Finished” surrounds the mandorla in Greek, Latin, English, and German.

Behind the altar is the triptych. It is kept closed during Lent, and so a crown of thorns is imprinted into the triptych’s exterior. However, for every other season, the triptych is open.

Above the panels is the college’s motto, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The interior panels reflect the themes of discovery, listeners, and bread.864 All three biblical scenes portary

Christ teaching someone. On the left, Jesus teaches his disciples by revealing his identity to them. The disciples represent the male members of the student body. In the center, Jesus teaches

Jewish elders in the temple. The elders are symbolic of the college’s faculty. Finally, on the right panel, Jesus converses with Mary and Martha, who represent the college’s female students.

Loaves of bread are found in every panel, and Jesus reveals himself to people in different ways.

The used live models for their depictions of Jesus and the other figures in the panels. For

862 Ibid. 863 Ibid. 864 Ibid. 298 instance, Nathan Pope used a waitress at an Olive Garden near Milwaukee as the model for

Martha in the right panel.865

However, the pièce de resistance of the chapel is the croce dipinta which hangs above the altar. While the cross is made of cedar, it is outlined with silver, gold, and copper leaf. This represents “that our Lord used his cross but once, and after using it, made atonement for sins, and need not die again (Hebrews 10:12). Symbolically, therefore, the ‘old rugged cross’ is retired and decorated, a monument to what Jesus accomplished for all sinners.”866 Two different crosses were made for the chapel. The first, a corpus, shows Jesus dying on the cross and is displayed during Lent. The other, which shown during the remainder of the liturgical year, shows Christ the King. The different colors along the cross’s edges represent the different stages of a

Christian’s life, since the cross appears different from different angles due to the inlaid silver, gold, and copper. While all of the means of grace are the central foci of the chapel’s design, one’s eyes are intended to be immediately drawn to the cross, since that was the site of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Moreover, the theologia crucis was central to Luther’s theological system.

The Chapel of the Christ was designed to showcase the Word and Sacraments as the central components of Lutheran worship. According to Dr. Wayne Wagner, the chapel’s organist, this was done not only to glorify God but to impress upon future pastors the importance of liturgical worship and how a church’s design contributes theologically and aesthetically to

Lutheran worship.867 Ideally, as pastors assist building committees in designing a new church structure, the Chapel of the Christ will influence them to push for a church designed to reflect

Lutheran sacramental theology rather than building cheaply or duplicating an evangelical

865 Wayne Wagner (professor of music at Martin Luther College), interview with the author, May 25, 2016. 866 “Chapel of the Christ.” 867 Wayne Wagner. 299 worship center. In both Trinity Chapel and the Chapel of the Christ, Lutheranism’s distinctive theology of worship, that views the Divine Service as means through which God serves his people with grace through the Word and Sacraments, are demonstrated and communicated to future called workers in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Wisconsin Synod. Through these edifices, the synods hope that Lutheran church architecture will be another means by which their theology will be communicated and preserved in the next generation.

Conclusion

In the mid-nineteenth century, N. F. S. Grundtvig, the famous Danish Lutheran hymn writer, was concerned about the state of the Church of Denmark. Much like his contemporary

Søren Kierkegaard, he believed that the state church had fallen into spiritual apostasy. In the midst of his concerns, he wrote the hymn “Kirken den er et gammelt Hus,” a hymn detailing the church’s durability due to the means of grace regardless of apparent apostasy.

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand Even when steeples are falling; Crumbled have spires in ev’ry land, Bells still are chiming and calling, Calling the young and old to rest, But above all the soul distressed, Longing for rest everlasting.

Surely in temples made with hands God, the Most High, is not dwelling, High above earth His temple stands, All earthly temples excelling. Yet He whom heav’ns cannot contain Chose to abide on earth with men – Built in our bodies His temple.

We are God’s house of living stones, Builded for His habitation; He through baptismal grace us owns Heirs of His wondrous salvation;

300 Were we but two His name to tell, Yet He would deign with us to dwell With all His grace and His favor.868

Grundtvig’s diagnosis of the Church of Denmark takes an anti-material tone. Even though steeples are falling, God does not reside in physical temples but rather in his spiritual temple, the hearts of every faithful Christian. God creates his church through the Words and Sacraments, and thus one does not need fine church edifices to be the Church. Rather, one simply needs the means of grace.

Contemporary confessional Lutherans could not agree more, theologically, though that has not stopped them from building intricately designed church buildings in order to communicate the distinctives of their faith. While the church is defined by the means of grace rather than bricks and stones, material objects provide additional means through which the faith is perpetuated. Unlike Reformed and Anabaptist theology in the Reformation, Lutheranism did not believe that the proper means for worship were restricted by biblical mandates. Rather,

Lutheran theologians took an expansive approach, believing that anything that was not explicitly forbidden by scripture was acceptable for worship. Such matters were ultimately adiaphora, or indifferent. However, when controversy, adiaphora were no longer indifferent, since surrender would equate with acceptance of false doctrine. Therefore, Lutheran church architecture took advantage of theological freedom to express itself through vibrant images of Jesus, saints, biblical figures, and nearly anything else. Idolatry was created not by crafting an image but by false beliefs about what the image represented. Therefore, idolatry was prevented not through iconoclasm but through theological orthodoxy.

868 Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 211:1-3. 301 Lutheran churches are sermons in stone. The three churches profiled in this chapter were intentionally constructed to exhibit Lutheranism’s distinctive theology of worship. While confessional Lutheran church architecture is not limited to one style, its primary feature is a central focus on the means of grace, which are seemlessly integrated into the church design.

Doug Tomhave encouraged Resurrection to choose a design which encouraged visitors to ask questions about the Lutheran faith. Church architecture became a form of catechesis in a largely secular city. He succeeded. Though a small mission congregation with a comparably small budget, they built a church which exudes Lutheran theology. The Wisconsin Synod recognized the worth of Tomhave’s project and profiled the church on many occasions through their periodicals, in which they solicited articles from Resurrection’s pastor concerning the importance of “deliberately Lutheran” church architecture. Similarly, Trinity Chapel and the Chapel of the

Christ are college chapels that represent different approaches to the catechetical value of

Lutheran architecture. Trinity Chapel is subtle and exposes students to a traditional church design which, though reflective of Scandinavian Lutheran architecture, is best seen as an alternative to broader evangelical trends in church architecture. It is traditional but not extravagant. The Chapel of the Christ, on the other hand, combined contemporary and traditional architectural styles to create an elaborate, $7.5 million chapel with symbolism in every aspect of its design. Designed specifically for students who likely will become ministers and school teachers in the near future, the Chapel of the Christ is meant to expose them to the intertwined nature of liturgical worship and church architecture. In other words, the Chapel of the Christ is intended to inspire future Resurrection Lutheran Churches. Confessional Lutheran church buildings are not simply meetinghouses designed for worship on Sundays. Rather, they are confessional statements which communicate their faith to outsiders while perpetuating it within

302 the community. In the process, just as St. John declares in his prologue that “the Word became flesh,” so does the Word enter the material world through architectural blueprints and church designs.

303

Figure 5.1 – The altar at St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS), Decatur, Indiana (photo by the author).

304

Figure 5.2 – Grave art with baptismal and eucharistic symbolism at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Decatur, Indiana (photo by the author).

305

Figure 5.3 – The sanctuary of Resurrection Lutheran Chuch (WELS), Verona, Wisconsin (photo by the author).

306

Figure 5.4 – Altar with the triptych in the background (photo by the author).

307

Figure 5.5 – Baptism stained glass window at Resurrection Lutheran Church, Verona, Wisconsin (photo by the author).

308

Figure 5.6 – Note the positioning of the baptismal font in relation to the stained glass window depicting Jesus’s baptism (photo by the author).

309

Figure 5.7 – The Trinity relief sculpture at Bethany Lutheran College’s Trinity Chapel in Mankato, Minnesota (photo by the author).

310

Figure 5.8 – The trinitarian triangles in Trinity Chapel’s guard railing (photo by the author).

311

Figure 5.9 – Note the three levels of steps towards the altar (photo by the author).

312

Figure 5.10 – Trinity Chapel’s triptych altar (photo by the author).

313

Figure 5.11 – The exterior of the Chapel of the Christ, Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minnesota (photo by the author).

314

Figure 5.12 – The Chapel of the Christ’s sanctuary (photo by the author). 315

Figure 5.13 – The chancel at the Chapel of the Christ (photo by the author).

316

Figure 5.14 – The fifth cross on the mensa (photo by the author).

317 CONCLUSION

GOOD FRUIT AND GOOD SEED

In 1884, about three years before his passing, C. F. W. Walther began giving a series of Friday evening lectures at Concordia Seminary. Surrounded by his students, who diligently took notes,

Walther offered twenty-five theses regarding the proper distinction between law and gospel, which Walther believed was “almost equally as important” to Lutheran theology as the doctrine of justification.869 Martin Luther had famously claimed that distinguishing between the two was so difficult that the person who can do it successfully ought to be considered a doctor of theology, and Walther aimed to assist his seminarians in sharpening their skills.870 Walther’s law and gospel lectures were informal in comparison to his seminary course lectures, which were read verbatim from a manuscript, and often began with various asides on tangential subjects. At the beginning of the third lecture, on September 26, 1884, Walther commenced his lecture with a theme that certainly was familiar to his students – the importance of true doctrine. “Christ

Himself describes the way to heaven as a narrow path,” Walther noted. “The path to pure doctrine is just as narrow. For pure doctrine is nothing less than a teaching on how to get to heaven.”871 A good pastor cannot lose sight of true doctrine, because “False doctrine is poison to the soul. If people at a large banquet drink from wine glasses to which arsenic has been added, they can drink physical death from their wine glasses. In the same way, an entire audience can be subject to spiritual and eternal death when they listen to a sermon to which the poison of false doctrine has been added.”872

869 Walther, Law and Gospel, 9. 870 Ibid., 9. 871 Ibid., 24. 872 Ibid., 24. 318 Walther knew that his obsession with true doctrine was not universally popular amongst

American Christians. Throughout his nearly half-century career as a pastor, professor, synodical president, author, and editor, Walther had encountered much criticism of his Missouri Synod for their strict understanding of theological orthodoxy. Even some Lutherans did not understand it and ridiculed them as a theological backwater. Walther channeled that opposition when he exclaimed to his audience “how foolish it is – in fact, how terribly deceived so many people obviously are – when they ridicule pure doctrine and say to us, ‘Enough with your “Pure doctrine, pure doctrine”! That can lead only to dead orthodoxy. Focus on pure living instead.

That way you will plant the seeds of righteous Christianity.’ That would be like saying to a farmer, ‘Stop fretting about good seed! Be concerned about good fruit instead!’”873 Unlike his opponents, Walther refused to divorce doctrine from life. For him, doctrine was life. “If you are concerned about good fruit,” Walther advised his students, “you will also be concerned about good seed. In the same way, if you are concerned about pure doctrine, you will at the same time also be concerned about genuine Christianity and a sincere life.”874 Anything else was foolishness.

The above excerpt from Walther’s law and gospel lectures exemplifies confessional

Lutheranism’s relationship to American religion. Walther made a positive comment about

Lutheranism’s approach to theology (i.e., that pastors must pay close attention to true doctrine), but he made it by way of a critical comment bemoaning American Protestants whose emphasis upon personal piety and emotional experience diminished their regard for orthodoxy.

Confessional Lutheranism’s theological faithfulness stood in sharp contrast with American

Protestant laxity. Walther’s lectures were peppered with direct and lengthy critiques of

873 Ibid., 25. 874 Ibid., 25. 319 evangelicals, Methodists, Pietists, Catholics, and other ancient and modern Schwärmerei, and his polemics were preserved by his students’ notes. After Walther’s death, notes of his Friday evening lectures were compiled and published as Law and Gospel, which remains mandatory reading for confessional Lutheran seminarians. In their preparation for parish ministry, seminarians learn that being Lutheran also means not being an American Protestant.

Confessional Lutheranism stands apart from American Protestant religion due to its strict subscription to the 1580 Book of Concord. Alongside the Bible, the Confessions serve as a theological norm by which confessional Lutheran synods judge their surroundings and competing versions of American Christianity. If, as Molly Worthen argued, an authority vacuum exists within American Protestantism which perpetuates disagreements as Protestants feel their way from crisis to crisis, confessional Lutherans agree with Worthen’s analysis and fill the void with their Confessions, which rearticulate the Word and therefore derive inerrancy from it. Since doctrine is eternal and never requires development, the Book of Concord does not require editing or amending. Ironically, given the clarifying and guiding purpose of the Confessions, amending the Confessions would deny the clarity of the scriptures, since that would imply that the confessors apparently misinterpreted scripture. Furthermore, updating the Confessions, especially by subtracting doctrines from them (e.g., the Pope as the Antichrist), would imply that theology is contextual, which would take away from the Word’s eternal nature. The Book of

Concord’s exaggerated role within confessional Lutheranism highlights the problem of authority in American Protestantism. While other Protestant traditions, such as conservative Reformed

Protestantism, are rediscovering their confessions as potential tools to maintain cohesiveness in the midst of theological diversity and add depth to an evangelicalism that some have deemed anti-intellectual, for nearly two centuries confessional Lutherans in the United States have used

320 their confessions to gain clarity and distinguish themselves from other Protestants.875 The

Missouri, Wisconsin, and Evangelical Lutheran Synods thus provide models for scholars seeking to understand confessional Protestantisms in American religion.

As the Book of Concord summarizes and clarifies biblical teachings, it also provides a lens through which confessional Lutherans view American Christianity. Even though the

Confessions were compiled and codified in 1580, they, and the teachings elucidated therein, are perpetually relevant. Therefore, confessional Lutheran theology judges American Christianity based upon sixteenth century German standards. Lutheran confessionalism thus creates a perceived aloofness and exclusivity on the part of confessional Lutheran synods. Since the Book of Concord contains truth, there is no room for disagreement with its contents. Anything less than full subscription of its teachings is heterodoxy. This allows little room for dialogue and none for compromise. Such strict adherence to the Book of Concord regulates and restricts confessional Lutheran interactions with evangelicals and other American Protestants. Since other extrabiblical sources of theological authority do not match the Book of Concord’s role within confessional Lutheranism, evangelicals and historians wonder incredulously how a religiously conservative Protestant subculture displays equal hostility to evangelicals who believe in Jesus’ virgin birth and liberal Protestants who question it.

875 Presbyterian theologian R. Scott Clark argues in Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 2008) that a return to the Reformed confessions would revitalize Reformed theology in America by grounding the tradition in its past while confronting contemporary challenges. Similarly, J. I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett in Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2010) contend that catechisms from the Reformation era are a “tried and true” approach to perpetuating the faith and that the practice ought to be renewed. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a movement known as the “New Calvinism” has developed which has reemphasized the Reformed confessions and catechisms composed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Concerning this movement, see Collin Hansen, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008). 321 Strict confessionalism provides the impetus for confessional Lutheran bromides against

American evangelicalism. Since the Confessions are timeless, so are their theological pronouncements and polemics. Therefore, when Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, and other confessional Lutherans settled on the western frontier of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, they looked to the Lutheran Confessions as they sought to restore pure, apostolic

Christianity. Since historians of American Christian primitivism and restorationism have focused on attempts to return to New Testament Christianity by replicating the scene described in Acts or through newly revealed documents providing a blueprint for restoration (such as Joseph Smith’s revelations), historical studies have identified restorationism with attempts, influenced by various strains of Reformed theology, that presumed that restored Christianity was equated with the New

Testament church. Lutherans did not share this belief, but they were nonetheless restorationists.

Lutheran theology taught that church governance was an adiaphoron and therefore did not need to duplicate the early church. Instead, Christian doctrine required apostolic purity, which had been rediscovered by Luther and his successors in the Reformation. Therefore, primitive

Lutheranism, codified in the Book of Concord, was the standard by which Stephan and Walther sought to restore Christianity in the Mississippi River valley.

Lutheran restorationism has remained a constant theme in confessional Lutheranism since its arrival in Missouri in 1839. When Martin Stephan’s sexual indiscretions created a crisis of legitimacy amongst the Saxon immigrants in Missouri, C. F. W. Walther, after a period of illness in which he devoted himself to studying the Confessions and the writings of the Lutheran

Fathers, relied upon the Augsburg Confession’s definition of the church, which emphasized orthodox teaching and administration of the sacraments, to prove that the Saxons in Missouri constituted a church even if they had emigrated at the behest of a profligate preacher. Walther’s

322 encyclopedic knowledge of sixteenth and seventeenth Lutheran sources became the backbone for his immense theological corpus, which extended across books, lectures, journals, articles, speeches, and sermons over the course of nearly fifty years. While some accused Walther of

“citation theology,” or “repristination,” implying that Walther was not an original or innovative theologian due to his copious quotations of the Confessions and Lutheran Fathers, his critics missed the point. While Walther adapted confessional Lutheran theology to American circumstances, in his eyes theology should not be original. Rather, since biblical orthodoxy has already been articulated through the Book of Concord, one ought to adhere to it rather than seek originality. Walther intended to apply the Confessions to an American context rather than amend them according to their new context. Therefore, when Walther encountered Methodists and other evangelicals utilizing “new means” to convert believers, he reacted in horror since their methods ran counter to Lutheran sacramental theology. Through his study of the Book of Concord,

Walther was well-familiar with Luther’s polemics targeting Anabaptists as Schwärmerei because of their reliance upon the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit apart from the sacraments.

Therefore, it took little imagination on Walther’s part to identify Methodists with the sixteenth century Schwärmerei. If the doctrines of the Confessions were timeless, so were the polemics.

The Confessions maintained their hold on confessional Lutheranism beyond the nineteenth century. Hermann Sasse’s confessionalism shaped the manner of his resistance to

Nazism. While he opposed Nazism as theological heresy and sheer evil, he could not cooperate with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, and other leaders of the Confessing Church in their united

Protestant front against the German Christian Movement. Though he deplored the German

Christians, he believed that the Confessing Church was a Reformed church which denied

Lutheran doctrine by professing openness to theological diversity in the face of crisis. Following

323 the war, rather than remaining in Germany and participating in a unionist and increasingly liberal

Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, he abandoned his professorship at Erlangen and immigrated to Australia. Sasse’s devotion to the Confessions caused him to exile himself to the hinterlands of Lutheranism, from which he sent dozens of circular letters to Lutheran pastors providing theological analysis. Sasse’s memory proved useful in the early twenty-first century to

Matthew Harrison, the president of the Missouri Synod. Encouraging the Missouri Synod to take a more stridently confessionalist stance, Harrison used the editorial apparatus of his editions of

Sasse’s circular letters to shape his synod’s trajectory. Much like the Confessions, Sasse became timeless, as Harrison used him via endnotes to argue with evangelicals, liberal Lutherans, and

Missouri Synod pastors who were insufficiently confessionalist. Sasse’s life and memory illustrate the enduring power of the Confessions as a source of authority and polemics within confessional Lutheranism.

Harrison’s creative editing of Sasse’s letters points to the material production involved in the construction of confessional Lutheranism. Harrison’s use of the editorial apparatus, transformed Sasse’s letters from mid- to late twentieth-century historical artifacts to living documents. Furthermore, his use of Sasse demonstrates that confessionalism is constantly being constructed. Rather than a static repristination of a past theology, confessional Lutheranism is perpetuated through conservative innovation. Harrison’s rediscovery and publication of Sasse’s works provided a means by which he could shape confessional Lutheranism in modern times through material means, such as books. Likewise is the case with hymnals. Hymnals are tangible artifacts constructed by synods to aid and regulate worship. In particular, through their emphasis on the Word and Sacraments as objective means through which God’s grace is dispensed, hymnals are material reactions against American evangelical worship practices which prioritize

324 emotional experience. Through redacted and amended hymn texts, absent hymns (such as

“Amazing Grace” in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary), and uniquely Lutheran hymns, hymnals define confessional Lutheranism by reflecting the doctrinal and liturgical priorities of the Book of Concord. Since the Confessions emphasize sacramental objectivity as a source of comfort rather than subjective emotions, hymnals follow suit, as do church building designs.

Many recently designed confessional Lutheran churches have been designed especially to communicate the centrality of the Word and Sacraments to Lutheran worship. Church buildings, through “U.A.C.” mantle stones, triptychs, and living water baptismal fonts directly aligned with the altar, become confessional statements differentiating their synods from “seeker friendly” or other evangelical churches which deemphasize sacraments. Thus, if Walther and others used the

Confessions to intellectually construct confessional Lutheranism, book editors, hymnal committees, and church designers physically construct the tradition through material means as well.

Confessional Lutheranism does not stand apart from American religion. Rather, as this dissertation has demonstrated, it is constructed in the midst of it. Confessional Lutherans, rather than remaining enclosed from the world, are very aware of their religious surroundings and react against them. Confessional Lutherans construct an intellectual and material world by applying their sixteenth century confessions to contemporary situations and defining themselves against their opponents, whom they perceive primarily to be American evangelicals. The Missouri,

Wisconsin, and Evangelical Lutheran Synods remind historians of the continued importance of theology in twenty-first century American Protestantism. While some historians have negated theology’s role in some American Protestant communities, confessional Lutherans remind scholars that rigid orthodoxy remains a concern for millions of religiously conservative

325 American Protestants.876 Furthermore, theology sharply divides confessional Lutherans from religious conservative evangelicals with whom they share more in common theologically and politically than liberal Protestants or other religious groups. Therefore, doctrinal distinctives matter as historians construct new narratives of American Protestant history and American religion in general. Additionally, confessional Lutherans provide a glimpse into the importance of material production as a means of perpetuating conservative religion. Through books, hymnals, and church buildings, confessional Lutherans communicate their theological ideals in paper, wood, and stone. Denominational intellectual production does not exist without material production. While the reading audience of Sasse’s letters is primarily academic or pastoral, thousands of people utilize confessional Lutheran church buildings or open hymnals every week.

However, without understanding the intellectual impulses that shape material production, material culture is a miasma. The two interests must be balanced in order to better understand how a tradition constructs its self-identity.877 Through intellectual and material means, confessional Lutherans construct “a mighty fortress,” to purloin Luther’s famous words, with

876 Todd M. Brenneman argues that “it is important to recognize evangelicalism as an aesthetic as much as a set of doctrines of beliefs” (Todd M. Brenneman, Homespun Gospel: The Triumph of Sentimentality in Contemporary American Evangelicalism [New York: Oxford University Press, 2014], 14). Brenneman does not negate the importance of theology, but rather argues that Max Lucado and other sentimental evangelicals, despite the arguable lack of depth in their writings, use emotion as the means of their intellectual production. Therefore, for those evangelicals, academic theology, such as exhibited in the Book of Concord, does not provide a helpful lens through which to analyze such Protestants. Similarly, anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann argues that contemporary evangelicals’ relationship with God rests on feelings of closeness and methods that create that sensation rather than doctrine (see T. M. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012]). Neil J. Young, in We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), provides a corrective by arguing that theological differences between Mormons, Catholics, and evangelicals prevented full political cooperation in the late twentieth century. 877 David D. Hall’s studies of Puritans and their material and book cultures exemplify this approach. See David D. Hall, Ways of Writing: The Practice and Politics of Text-Making in Seventeenth Century New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), and David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). 326 which they define and defend themselves against incursions by American evangelicals and all other perceived manifestations of Schwärmerei.

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353 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Adam S. Brasich is a native of the Upper Midwest, having lived in southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin. He earned his A.B. summa cum laude at Wabash College, where he majored in Religion while minoring in Ancient Greek and Political Science. He earned his M. A. and PhD in American religious history from Florida State University, where he studied under Dr. John

Corrigan. While at Florida State University, he served as Senior Assistant to the Editors of

Church History and a copy editor of The Journal of Southern Religion. Additionally, he was a participant in the Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture at Brigham Young University in summer

2017. He presented at numerous conferences, including meetings of the Mormon History

Association, John Whitmer Historical Association, and the Communal Studies Association. His research interests include religious conservatism in the United States, twentieth century

American Protestantism, and Mormonism.

354