New Book from Concordia Publishing House: C.F.W. Walther – Churchman and Theologian
Called “the American Luther,” Rev. Dr. C. F. W. Walther is celebrated as a founder of the log cabin college (1839) that became one of the ten largest seminaries in North America: Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The educational emphasis and precedents Walther set made his theological heirs highly influential in American Christianity a century later when the synod fully embraced English. Walther’s legacy persists through his most widely read book, Law and Gospel. He tirelessly led the publication of Der Lutheraner journal (founded 1844) and became the first president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. You can purchase a copy of the book here.
In 1847, when Walther helped to found The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the church body included only 19 pastors, 30 congregations, and 4,099 baptized members. At the time of his death forty years later (May 7, 1887), the church body had grown to 931 pastors, 678 member congregations, 746 affiliated congregations, 544 preaching stations, and 459,376 baptized members. The 200th anniversary of Walther’s birth is an important milestone for the history of confessional Lutherans and for North American Christianity.
Contributors:
Christoph Barnbrock is professor of Practical Theology at the Lutherische Theologische Hochschule in Oberursel, Germany, which is the seminary of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church(SELK).
Alfonso Espinosa serves as senior pastor at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Irvine, CA, and teaches as an adjunct professor of theology at Concordia University, Irvine.
Jeffrey Holtan serves as pastor of Divine Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church (WELS) in Milwaukee, WI.
Charles Schaum is the general editor for the 2010 edition of Walther’s Law and Gospel.
Thomas Egger is a professor of Old Testament studies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and developer of the Waltherana Research Guide on behalf of the Concordia Historical Institute.
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Sasse has some very pertinent observation son why the Missouri Synod was a missionary church:
“It was the context in which Lutherans found themsleves in the American Midwest – where a land quickly opened up for settlement was subsequently swamped by immigrants from all the European nations and churches – which made the Lutheran Church there a missionary church. In this context, the church had to gain her members through missionary outreach, and her congregations were, like all churches in the US, gatherings, assemblies or societies of individuals who had consciously decided to belong to the church of their choice. This is the distinctly American trait in the character of the Missouri Synod, which derives from the history of that nation, and the same trait is found in all the other Lutheran synods of western America. However, it is given its strongest expression in the Missouri Synod, for this version of Lutheranism possessed that which in a mission situation really makes a church a missionary church: the awareness of a particular calling and a firm conviction about what is to be believed (dogma), which alone makes missionary preaching possible. The self-understanding of the early Missourians (lit. the Stephanite church) of being a remnant of pure Lutheranism was refined through catastrophe and by Walther’s preaching and pastoral care into a truly Lutheran consciousness of being church – an assembly standing on the foundation of justifying grace and drawing its life from the means of grace. This explains the Missouri Synod’s awareness of a particular calling and the dogmatic conviction that is inseparably bound up with it – which is tied to Lutheran Orthodoxy.”
(From ‘Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod’, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 20, July 1951.)
Dogmatic conviction which led to missionary outreach – this was, imho, Walther’s great legacy. May it be treasured by the LCMS today!