NEWS RELEASE
Concordia Publishing House
3558 South Jefferson Ave.
St. Louis, Missouri 63118-3968
CONTACT: Cartiay McCoy, Corporate Communications
Phone: 314.268.1290
e-mail: cartiay.mccoy@cph.org
For Immediate Release
Wilhelm Loehe: Witness, Mercy, Life Together
CPH Releases a New Full-Length Biography of J.K.W. Loehe, C.F.W. Walther’s Coworker and Competitor
St. Louis, MO— In The Life, Work and Influence of Wilhelm Loehe, readers find the latest, most thorough English biography of J.K.W. Loehe to date. Concordia Publishing House is proud to present this comprehensive biography about a father of confessional Lutheranism in North America.
“Next to God, it is Pastor Loehe to whom our Synod is indebted for its happy beginning and rapid growth in which it rejoices; it may well honor him as its spiritual father. It would fill the pages of an entire book to recount even briefly what for many years this man, with tireless zeal in the noblest unselfish spirit, has done for our Lutheran Church and our Synod in particular,” Dr. C.F.W. Walther said as quoted by Enrich H. Heintzen.
Loehe, who never visited the United States, sent missionaries and founded seminaries to proclaim the Christian witness. He established deaconess training to help the Church show mercy. Based on his study of doctrine, he crafted both liturgy and church life to reflect God’s Word in the Christian life together, thus coming into conflict with church officials. Author, Dr. Erika Geiger, sets forth Loehe's life and the divided opinions about him in a compelling and authoritative narrative.
Author Dr. Erika Geiger (1937– ) lived from 1953–55 in Neuendettelsau, Germany where Loehe and his work made an enduring impression on her. In 1956 she served as a deaconess in a hospital of the Neuendettelsau Deaconess Institute. She later served as an associate professor in Korntal bei Stuttgart, at the Friedrich-Oberlin-Fachoberschule and at the Fachhochschule for Religionspaedagogik, Munich.
Translator Dr. Wolf Knappe (1926– ) comes from a family of German pastors. In 1951, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church called him to serve in Wine Hill, IL. He has also served as a guest lecturer and as a translator for Luther Digest.
Visit cph.org to order your copy, or call 1.800.325.3040.
Erika Geiger narrates Pastor Wilhelm Loehe’s story with accuracy, sympathy, and vigor. Avoiding hagiographic impulses she paints a picture of Loehe that allows readers to see his humanity in the multiple scenes of his life: a boy saddened by the premature death of his father, a struggling student of theology, a disenchanted pastor wondering if he had a place in the church, a grieving widower, an energetic preacher, a caring shepherd, a determined organizer of missions, and an aging and somewhat broken old man yet living in Christian hope. This first, full length biography of a key player in Lutheran history is accessible to lay audiences and appreciated by scholars.
Posts
1 comments:
“Next to God, it is Pastor Loehe...in particular."
Such an undated quote needs context to avoid misdirecting Lutheran readers. C.F.W. Walther wrote that statement about Loehe in 1852. This was after Walther and F.C.D. Wyneken returned from their 1851 visit to Loehe in Germany in an attempt to work out their doctrinal disagreements, particularly on church and ministry, and a year before Loehe finally severed his relationship with Walther and the Missouri Synod in a letter (edged in black) because of the Missouri Synod’s polity and its approval of Walther’s Kirche und Amt as the definitive statement under Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions of the Synod's understanding on the doctrine of church and ministry.
After the Loehe/Missouri Synod split in 1853, there were a number of articles in Der Lutheraner and Lehre und Wehre against Loehe's heterodoxy on the doctrine of church and ministry, as well as disagreements with the Iowa Synod and the Ohio Synod, both associated with Loehe. For example, in Der Lutheraner (Vol. 17, No. 7, November 13, 1869, p. 49) C.F.W. Walther wrote the following in regard to Loehe’s heterodoxy regarding the office of public ministry:
"From this one can see how grievously and dangerously the Buffalo Synod, Pastor Loehe, the Synod of Iowa, and all those err from the truth who together with them assert that the church or the Christians do not have the keys originally and immediately but through the pastors!... For when Pastor Loehe had in his heart fallen away from the symbols of our church, then he also confessed honestly and publicly with mouth and pen that he could no longer subscribe to the symbolical books of our church unconditionally because he had found errors in them."
For additional context, by the time he broke with the Missouri Synod in 1853, Loehe had sent 82 men to America; most joining the Missouri Synod in agreement with Walther's theses on church and ministry. Moreover, Friedrich Brunn, a pastor in Steeden, Germany, also broke with Loehe when he became convinced that Walther was correct on the doctrine of church and ministry. Brunn began a preseminary school in Germany, and after Brunn met with Walther in 1860, his school eventually contributed over 230 young men to Missouri Synod seminaries, becoming pastors, teachers, and leaders throughout the Missouri Synod. The Missouri Synod owes more recognition to the efforts of Pastor Brunn and acknowledgement of the men he provided to the young Missouri Synod.
Post a Comment