Walther - A Patriotic American

WALTHER
A PATRIOTIC AMERICAN
Christian News, May 2, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 16

C.F.W. Walther strongly opposed Socialism and Communism. Christian News distributed hundreds of copies of his booklet first published in 1879 titled Communism and Socialism (Available from Christian News for $ .50). Walther defends the thesis “Why Should and Can No Reasonable Man, Much Less A Christian, Take Part in the Efforts of Communists and Socialists?” He listed some dozen reasons why “The efforts of the Socialists and Communists are in conflict with definite doctrines of Christianity.” The LCMS’s CPH should reprint this pamphlet during the Walther year.

Walther was a loyal patriotic American. He said in a Fourth of July speech to a Christian youth group on July 4, 1853:

“There are indeed innumerable advantages and benefits which distinguish our new fatherland above all other lands and which have been poured out upon it especially since that memorable Declaration of Independence down to the present hour. I would have to be more than blind if I were not to see them. The land which we have chosen for our new homeland stands as the greatest marvel of this century before our eyes and before those of the whole wondering world, a tree that has grown with unprecedented speed, laden with a thousand golden fruits of every kind of human industriousness, and at the same time full of innumerable sprouting blossoms, which promise ever new fruits of human effort, while ever greater numbers from all languages and nations gather under its shade-giving, ever further spreading branches.”

“Then what is the greatest and most glorious, indeed, the only thing that the state can grant the true religion? Not privileges, but freedom; not civil laws to command faith in the teachings of religion, but the freedom of religion to defend and spread herself with the weapons of the convincing Word; not dominion in the state, but freedom to live within it, a hospitable reception, a guestroom, a place to stay.”

“Where compulsion begins, religion ends. All compulsion in religion is a (self-) contradiction, it is something unreal (Unding), for compulsion is contrary to the nature of religion itself. Freedom is its being. Freedom is the element in which alone it can breathe, live, and continue to exist. Religion is not to fight against earthly armies but against errors and sins. Religion is not to conquer lands, cities, and towns, but hearts. So what can the state, with its stone prisons and steel weapons, do to help religion?”

Entire speech in The Christian News Encyclopedia