Walther: 200 Years After His Birth - WHAT WOULD HE SAY AND DO TODAY?

Walther: 200 Years After His Birth - WHAT WOULD HE SAY AND DO TODAY?
Christian News, October 17, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 40

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, “The Greatest American Theologian” (CN, October 10, 2011), was born October 25, 1811. “Walther,” a 4 disc DVD set sent to the congregations of the LCMS was featured on page one of last week’s Christian News. CN wishes every member of the LCMS would at least watch the movie. Nothing is said about what Walther would do or say today if he were a member of the LCMS.

This issue includes the section on Walther in the Concordia Cyclopedia published by CPH in 1927.

While the 200th anniversary of Walther’s birth is now being commemorated in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, has his theology become a forgotten relic rather than a lived reality?

If Walther were living today, would he remain with the LCMS, a denomination which includes more than a thousand pastors who support the ordination of women, allows on its clergy roster those who promote evolution and deny the inerrancy of the Bible, and whose leaders at its seminaries and publishing house praise Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a liberal theologian who denied the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the greatest Lutheran theologian since Martin Luther?

Today the LCMS allows its leaders to maintain that the Muslim god is also the true God.
This issue of CN includes the editor’s conclusion of his book Baal or God published in 1965, p. 4. The editor quoted what Walther told the First Convention of the synod’s Iowa District in 1879 and recommended “Separate from your denomination when it no longer preaches God’s Word and when it tolerates the anti-Christian views of modern liberalism.”

Last week CN reported that the 2011 Walther Conference scheduled to be held at Concordia Seminary on November 11 and 12 has been cancelled. The editor was scheduled to speak at the conference on “What Would Walther Do or Say Today.” “What About Doctrinal Discipline? ̶ If WALTHER WERE PRESIDENT OF THE LCMS TODAY?” was the title of the editors essay at the First National Walther Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, November 5 and 6, 1998.

On March 18, 2011 the editor sent a tentative outline of the speech he intended to present at Concordia Seminary to LCMS President Matthew Harrison, Concordia Seminary President, Dale Meyer, LCMS Missouri District President, Ray Mirly, CTCR Executive Joel Lehenbauer, the president of the LCMS Concordia University System, and the president of CPH. None of the LCMS leaders said they would be able to serve on the panel responding to CN. They were also not able to send a representative to serve on the panel.

The outline CN sent to the LCMS leaders and letter of March 18 follow:

Tentative Outline
1. Support a Twenty-first Century Reformation and Formula of Concord, which reaffirms the Book of Concord of 1580 but speaks to the issues of our day: evolution, higher criticism of the Bible, abortion, homosexuality, communism, and socialism, etc. Expose the anti-scriptural theology now tolerated in all the major denominations.

2. Stop the “Dying of the Light” in the Concordia University System as exposed in The Dying of the Light – The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches by James Burtschaell and in The Christian News Encyclopedia and the volumes of Christian News.

3. Call for the highest academic standards and the careful study of solid evidence in all areas.

4. Defend the inerrancy of the Bible and oppose such destructive notions of the Bible as the J-E-D-P source hypothesis, the Deutero-Isaiah theory, 160 B.C dating of Daniel and the translation of “young woman” rather than “virgin” for almah in Isaiah 7:14.

5. Support free speech and debates including a debate between those at CPH and in the CUS and LCMS seminaries who insist that the RSV and the ESV are accurate and reliable translations and those who claim that the RSV and ESV, which is 91% RSV, undermine basic doctrines of God’s Word, direct rectilinear messianic prophecy, and change the Bible text in more than 1,000 passages.

For entire article see Vol. 49, No. 40, Christian News, October 17, 2011.