Wilhelm Loehe and North America

Historical Perspective and Living Legacy

Craig L. Nessan

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532686566, 9781532686573
• eBook ISBN: 9781532686580
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Wilhelm Loehe is one of the most significant nineteenth-century figures for North American church life and mission, whose influence continues into the present. Loehe is unique for joining together aspects of the Christian life often held to be antithetical: worship and mission, orthodoxy and pietism, evangelical proclamation and diakonia, and theological imagination and practical skill in administration. Already in the nineteenth century Loehe contributed a vital principle for advancing ecumenical understanding: the idea of "open questions." When the church confesses core teachings as one, there does not need to be agreement on all secondary matters in order to live together in church fellowship.This book explores Loehe's historical activity as a pastor, as a supporter of mission in North America, as an organizer (together with Friedrich Bauer) of theological education in North America, and as a founder of deaconess institutions in Neuendettelsau, Germany, that still exist today. The central themes represented by Loehe not only constitute a matrix that has significance for the church and its mission today but also constitute an agenda for the church of the future.

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Wilhelm Loehe’s Significance for Church and Mission in North America

Pastor Wilhelm Loehe (1808–1872) had a negative first impression of the obscure Franconian village of Neuendettelsau, Germany, where he was called to serve as pastor in 1837. Yet from this humble, out-of-the-way congregation led by a pastor who did not want to go there arose a mission movement that has changed church and world in remarkable ways, including the church in North America. Wilhelm Loehe held together commitments often seen as contradictory: liturgical worship and passion for mission, confessional orthodoxy and pietistic devotion, evangelical proclamation and diaconal servanthood, theological imagination and pragmatic skills in administration and finance. This chapter introduces these themes. The Loehe legacy is fascinating not only for its historical contributions in the nineteenth century but also for providing a matrix for us to rethink and reconfigure the shape of the church and its mission in our time.

Biographical Orientation

During his lifetime, Loehe’s missionary theology acquired ever new accents: God’s mission necessitates the church, mission begins at worship, mission entails confessional loyalty, mission involves pastoral care, mission requires leaders prepared through theological education, mission sends ministers to serve overseas, and mission flows into diaconal service. This book explores the historical record regarding the influence of Loehe in North America and draws upon this legacy for constructing vital approaches to ministry and mission for the church in our post-Christian age.

Loehe’s biography demonstrates—from his earliest engagement in public ministry to the end of his life—how his pulse beat with a passion for both vital liturgical worship and for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe was born on February 21, 1808, in a room within his family home in Fűrth, Germany, the neighbor city to the regional center of Nuremburg.1 Raised as a child who loved the church and influenced by the devotion of his mother and experiences in his home parish of St. Michael’s, Loehe expressed the desire from an early age to become a pastor. As a theological candidate aspiring to a pastoral call in a prominent urban location, he ran into repeated disfavor with judicatory officials, making it difficult for him to land a permanent position of any kind. The combination of an uncompromising zeal about Lutheran confessional identity in opposition to “unionism” with the Reformed tradition and the implementation of pietistic practices into pastoral ministry (such as prayer, Bible study, and hymn singing in private homes) made him suspect.

Consistent with the pietistic leanings of his childhood home, Loehe became notorious for organizing missionary circles and missionary societies during his theological studies.2 At Erlangen University he was captivated by the pietistic theology of Professor Johann Christian Krafft. After completing his university study in 1830 and his ordination in 1831, Loehe spent seven years serving in temporary positions at several locations in an extended series of vicarages. It was a disquieting period for Loehe, who wanted to establish a settled residence, where he could serve his Lord and Savior as a parish pastor among God’s people. Yet conflicts and disappointments seemed to meet him at every turn.

One bright light amid the shadows and turmoil of these years was his engagement and marriage in July 1837 to Helene Andrae, daughter of a merchant family from Frankfurt and his confirmand in 1835. Together the newly married couple buoyed their courage to move into the parsonage in the remote and, to Loehe’s eyes, backwards village on August 1, 1837.

What did Neuendettelsau look like at this time? The low thatched houses with their dirty window panes, the “disorderly manure piles” in front of every house were not an inspiring sight. Only the baronial mansion, the parsonage, the inn and the homes of wealthy farmers were roofed with expensive tiles. If it rained, one had to wade through the mud of the unpaved village streets, otherwise through dust. Loehe, who was so fussy about cleanliness, could not walk the short way from the parsonage to the church without having his robe splattered with dirt. Therefore he had this way paved during the first year of his ministry—the first paved street in Neuendettelsau.3

Based on his earliest encounters with this place, Loehe is purported to have remarked that he would not even want his dog to be buried there. Ironically, Loehe would later purchase property for a town cemetery, where his own grave, together with those of his wife and co-workers, holds a prominent place. During his first ten years in Neuendettelsau, Loehe applied for calls to city parishes four times, none of them successful.4 So he committed his life and ministry to this isolated place.

The early years of parish ministry were filled with opportunities and challenges for the new pastor. Loehe dedicated himself to restoring the Sunday worship service as the center of parish life. He had great interest in studying historic liturgical forms and sought to introduce the congregation to worship practices that he found especially meaningful; for example, he encouraged congregational participation in the service by saying “Amen” after prayer or kneeling during the Lord’s Supper, some of which prompted noticeable resistance. Loehe devoted great attention to the preparation of his sermons, which aimed at faithfulness to God’s Word expressed in a form that would communicate effectively with the simple lives of the villagers. In his pastoral visitation, Pastor Loehe recognized the harsh living conditions of the people, overcrowding in many homes, and the lack of adequate care for the aged and persons with disabilities. He became increasingly focused on greater participation by members in the educational and worship life of the congregation, including children and their mothers.

Helene played a significant role as the pastor’s wife in the life of the parish, starting a preschool for small children whose mothers had many other responsibilities in the afternoons. Their first child, Johann Friedrich, was born af...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Wilhelm Loehe’s Significance for Church and Mission in North America
• Chapter 2: Wilhelm Loehe’s Influence on the Iowa Synod\
• Chapter 3: Two Historical Trajectories in the Missouri and Iowa Synods
• Chapter 4: Wilhelm Loehe in Deindoerfer’s History of the Iowa Synod
• Chapter 5: Friedrich Bauer (1812–1874)
• Chapter 6: Theological Curriculum at the Missionsseminar Neuendettelsau in the Nineteenth Century
• Chapter 7: The Theology of Wartburg Theological Seminary
• Chapter 8: The Loehe Legacy and the Church of the Future
• Appendix A: Loehe’s Legacy and the Apostolic Calling of Wartburg Theological Seminary for the Church and World in the Twenty-First Century1
• Appendix B: Wilhelm Loehe
• Bibliography