In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey

by Stephan, Philip

  3 Kuhn is the only name given. No first name is given in any of the literature.

  4 David Zerzen, “C. F. W. Walther and the Heritage of Pietistic Conventicles,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 63, no. 3 (1989): 14.

  5 Arthur Drevlow, “C. F. W. Walther: Shaped by Adversity,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 69 (1996): 93.

  9

  Martin Stephan as Defender of the Faith

  Over time Stephan’s ministry extended to the greater Lutheran Church in Dresden and his struggle with the state church was known in most of Saxony. Stephan found himself drawn deeply into these conflicts by his critics within the church and in the secular press. Many of the Lutheran congregations at the time of Stephan’s ministry were influenced by rationalistic thought. Stephan continued to preach and teach how bankrupt rationalism was and how it endangered faith in God. He often pointed out in his sermons how reason alone did not help people come to faith or help them accept the love that God poured out to them. Although these truths were upheld in the Confessional documents of the Lutheran Church, Stephan’s unrelenting style of attacking the rationalistic practices of the German Church attracted intense criticism.

  The attempt to unite all the Lutheran and Reformed Churches continued long after the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III’s edict issued in 1817. The proposed union would result in one form of liturgy for both groups and the old confessional documents of both the Lutherans and the Reformed Churches would be null and void. With the acceptance of the “Union,” the Lutheran church ceased to exist as an individual organization in Prussia, and the civil powers crushed every attempt to organize an independent Lutheran Church with a visible separation from the “Union.”1 While the edict was applicable to Prussia only, other provinces like Saxony felt the cultural and regal pressure to conform. Yet, in spite of the king’s insistence, even threatening force, Martin Stephan and many other Lutheran pastors persisted in the “Old Lutheran” liturgies and teachings.

  Stephan’s strong stand in opposing the union and his leadership in speaking out against it earned himself the reputation as leader of the “Old Lutherans,” as Koepchen notes:

  With firmness and courage, unrivalled in those days, he had publicly preached Christ at the seat of the Supreme Consistory of the State Church, and was a faithful witness against every form of unbelief, so brazenly raising its head there. His manner was impressive and fascinating, so that they, who sought advice or consolation from him, not only were fully satisfied, but at once gladly and joyously yielded themselves to his spiritual care and cheerfully accepted his direction and leadership.2

  Stephan persisted in his opposition to the Union in several areas. This crisis of conscience was posed as not only a question of theology but of spiritual integrity. He found it necessary to reach beyond the cold doctrines of the Reformation and uphold the confession of the Reformers. These confessions were not only his own: he had pledged to uphold them in his ordination vows. They were also the words of faith that came from the souls and hearts of many Lutherans who had lived before him. Not only did he preach traditional orthodox Lutheran doctrine, especially in his Friday evening classes, but he fervently preached against the union because he felt it threatened major Christian teaching grounded in Scripture.

  Stephan was not alone in this effort. He was not a leader of some offshoot movement as some progressives had charged. Many pastors joined him opposing this union that, in their thinking, offered at best a barren theology. Among the pastors who joined Stephan in this opposition of a Protestant Union were those who later emigrated with him to America.

  These pastoral colleagues were forcefully vocal in their opposition to the merger of churches:

  [C]lergy for the most part opposed it [the merger] ... especially in parts of Saxony where a particularly doctrinaire strain of the old Lutheran orthodoxy had maintained itself ... Here and there, in villages and cities, preachers mounted their pulpits and with prophetic zeal challenged the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment as well as the superficiality of the Prussian Union of 1817. Their preaching was not only negative however; these men laid forth the Scriptures with power and conviction, giving the hearers a faith which had practical application to their lives 3

  When Stephan defended some of the key doctrines centered in the Bible, then the criticism of his theology and his ministry escalated. Not only were the conventicles he conducted labeled as sectarian, they were considered by many in the churches as illegal. Stephan was charged with unorthodox and “enthusiastic” preaching and teaching. After he and his congregation were branded mystical and sectarian in practice, he carefully spelled out what he and St. John’s members believed and practiced. He connected his ministry at St. John’s to the historic teachings of the church:

  But some might say, even though you preach no false doctrine in church, do you try to spread it through your midweek meetings: Is not mysticism and sectarianism fostered thereby: Not at all! For in these meetings I preach and teach no doctrine that I do not preach in church. These devotional meetings are taken up with repetition of the sermons, a short hymn ... , discussions touching topics of applied Christianity, prayers or readings from accepted good Christian books, e.g., Luther’s Works and the Biblical Summaries composed by the theological faculties to Tubingen, Leipzig, in 1709. And all this is done with doors open; anyone, without exception is free to enter the same as at church.

  But is not (sic) sectarianism strengthened by these meetings? I think not. As little as sectarianism is spread by the various meetings in other churches, for every congregation meets in a separate building, thus forming a division of the church at large; why should it not create sectarianism if we meet in our parsonage or school house? [It is] not a separate meeting place [that] constitutes a sect, but false doctrine.4

  In spite of Stephan’s refutations, editorials of the local newspapers continued the rumors and accusations. Yet, his congregation and coworkers held him in high esteem; he was supported by his fellow pastors, and defended by some high state officials. One such was Graf Detlev von Einseidel who had successfully negotiated the restoration of Saxony at the peace conferences of Pressburg and Vienna, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

  Graf Detlev Von Einsiedel was a devout Lutheran and member of St. John’s Church. Despite his different church affiliation than the king who was Catholic, he first served as prime minister of Saxony. It was von Einseidel’s ongoing help that enabled the congregation and Pastor Stephan to continue the midweek services virtually unmolested, but not entirely free of attack.

  NOTES

  1 Arthur Drevlow, “C. F. W. Walther: Shaped by Adversity,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 69 (1996): 6.

  2 William Koepchen, “Pastor Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838” (unpublished ms., St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute; New York: Stephan Family Archives, 1935), 8.

  3 David John Zerzen, “C. F. W. Walther and the Heritage of Pietist Conventicle,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 62 (Spring 1996): 12.

  4 Koepchen, “Pastor Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 19–20.

  III

  NOON HEAT AND CONFLICT

  10

  Condition of the German Lutheran Church

  At the time of Martin Stephan, the German Lutheran Church was already state-controlled and called the Landeskirchen (literally Church of the Land). A recent church historian, Mary Todd, summarizes the “mind of the Church” in Germany through various theological movements. The first era, 1580 to 1730, she calls the “age of Lutheran orthodoxy.” Theologians expounded and clarified doctrinal positions of the Lutheran Church as stated in its confessions and Luther’s works as well as sacred scripture. They sought to develop and defend their faith against the doctrinal stance of Roman Catholics, Calvinists, and radical reformers. 1

  After a while, these theological battles grew wearisome and dogmatic positions became brittle and unmovable. Todd quotes F. Ernest Stoeffler who, in his 1965
work Rise of Evangelical Pietism, viewed this rigid allegiance to the Lutheran Confessions as a movement that resulted in a “hardening of Lutheran doctrine.”2

  Orthodox Lutherans tried to keep the doctrine pure, by adopting acceptable phrases. These became litmus tests determining a person’s orthodoxy. It was as if there were a formula for speaking the truth or a system by which one could determine the doctrinal truth of other denominations. Stoeffler believed that this “theologizing by formula” distorted the Christian faith. According to these formulas, real authority did not center on the Bible; it was embedded in a perspective of the Bible considered orthodox. Ordinary laypersons, however, grew weary of this fight for pure teaching because their spiritual needs were not being met.

  In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, subsequent to the “age of orthodoxy,” the philosophy of rationalism ruled much of European thinking. Although arising from within the ranks of the church, rationalism was losing influence in some quarters and soon held in suspicion by many including Martin Stephan. He represented a Pietistic movement parallel to and opposed to rationalism.

  This development, called the Confessional Movement, sought a return to the orthodoxy of the Reformation Era and did battle with rationalistic ideas preached by new Lutheran pastors. It was no dead orthodoxy they sought to resurrect. They blended conviction in the truths set forth in the Lutheran Confessions with their brand of Pietism always searching for a vibrant and living faith. Historian William Koepchen describes how Stephan and the small band of like-minded pastors derisively called “Old Lutherans” threatened those who held rationalistic approaches to religion or who made attempts to promote the Lutheran, Reformed Protestant union.

  The fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion: inspiration of the Bible, sin, faith, repentance, justification, sanctification, salvation by grace, were regarded as ancient superstitions, and they who still dared to teach them, were looked upon as persons who blocked true progress and education. Pastors who still tried to lead their flocks to repentance and to faith in Christ, the Savior, were regarded as dangerous men who crazed the people’s minds.3

  In addition to the influence of rationalism, the distinctions between the two streams of Protestantism were blurring. King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (1797–1840) attempted the unification of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Prussia. He was a deeply religious man but not a particularly strong monarch. His active interest in the Church was spurred by his desire to have one land and one Church, and so he ordered it.

  In an edict dated September 27, 1817, the three hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, the king of Prussia commanded “that Lutherans are henceforth to hold church fellowship with the Reformed, and that all differences of confession are in future to be eliminated.” The king’s edict forced the two confessions into an artificial union, thus declaring a union without creating one.

  This decree did not prohibit Lutheran or Reformed teaching. Luther’s Small Catechism, for instance, was retained in the state primary schools. However study of the Lutheran confessions contained in the Book of Concord was discouraged and dismissed. On Wednesday, October 29, 1817, the clergy of the Prussian city of Berlin, whose forefathers accepted the Lutheran faith three centuries earlier in 1525—resolved to drop the names Lutheran and Reformed, in favor of the designation “Evangelical.”

  Even though the king of Prussia’s edict did not legally apply to Saxony, the pressure for unity of Germany and for unity in the church was forcibly felt by the Saxon churches. Many of the Landeskirchen Lutheran and Reformed pastors voluntarily began to implement the edict for union in Saxony. This effort was finally completed in all of Germany 1847. It was on the basis of these movements in both church and state that the Saxon Emigration Society made their decision to emigrate Germany. In 1838, the Saxon Emigration Society summarized their description of the condition of the German Lutheran Church and stated their reasons for going to America.

  I. Unfavorable Conditions in General. The Word of God is almost generally rejected. The ordinances for civil life are very largely opposed to it. Civil government has become more worldly [sic] than it ought to be according to God’s will. The depravity of the public institutions for higher education is awful; there are no schools to which a Christian could send his children with a good conscience. Colleges and higher schools, where, beside secular things, the Holy Scriptures are purely and correctly taught, do not exist. Theological seminaries are institutions, in which spiritual murderers are trained. Among the laboring classes, especially tradesmen, Sunday work has become a necessity not to mention oppression of conscience. Access to spiritual food and nurture, if not denied entirely, is hindered. Nearly everywhere there is a lack of true Lutheran teachers, and their places are filled by hirelings of the new order: semi and false teachers, who mislead the immature minds of children. Experienced pastors, who would watch over souls, not simply preaching and teaching, are not found. It, therefore, becomes increasingly necessary to escape this general corruption.

  II. The Church in Saxony. The Church in Saxony has in fact been secularized, i.e. its dogma and its rites are at the mercy of civil powers. The authority of the Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs, and that of the Saxon Consistory have so been extended under the law, that they are no longer placed under, but over the Church’s Confessions and the Church’s Constitution. Hence the lawful status of the Church is trodden under foot. Justice is denied them, since their complaints are barred from public discussion. It is of no use to say that all the deputies of the Landtag are Christians, especially in view of the fact that several of them betray their anti-churchly leanings by defending them, while at the same time they reveal an astonishing ignorance of the chief and fundamental doctrines of the Evangelical Church. True, the obligation by oath, on the Symbolical Books still remains; but the majority of the clergy actually do not follow the plain norm of doctrine contained in these books. The confession of faith used by the catechumens at their confirmation in Saxony is anti-scriptural. The Union in Saxony, though not officially consummated, yet is so in fact.

  III. The Ministry of the Church is in Bondage. The official activity and work of the Lutheran clergy is hampered and hindered. The supervision of the elementary schools has been taken away from them. School teachers, preferred by an infidel authority, break down what has been built. The special care and nurture of individuals is regarded as “conventicles” (illegal assemblies for worship on non-designated days). The ancient Lutheran formula for Absolution is nearly everywhere forbidden. Excommunication of unworthy partakers of Holy Communion is not permitted. God’s holy commands are ridiculed; His Word is about to be fettered, and although loudly complaining, we cannot get a hearing—hence, we will shake the dust from our feet, and hasten from a land in which the Church has been carried to its grave.4

  Annoying restrictions weighed down Lutheran pastors. Their official activities came under police surveillance and the State threatened imprisonment and banishment for these Old Lutheran “nonconformists.” Although all ordained clergy were required to take an oath of allegiance to teach and support the Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions most of the clergy no longer followed these norms of doctrine contained in the Book of Concord. Stephan and his colleagues found this offensive. They could not agree with all the so-called newly formed doctrine, which now included some of the Reformed positions on communion and baptism. Although he registered his disagreement, he was not openly forced to leave. The state controlled Consistory of Saxony used other means of forcing Stephan and his cohorts to comply or leave.

  As early as 1810, when Stephan was installed as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, he assessed the mood and theology of the Lutheran Church as losing its soul. Other pastors and laity felt the same way and joined him in speaking out. Stephan had the perfect platform from which to speak, for, as a Bohemian Lutheran congregation with exemption for special services, this church was on the periphery of the state church and not bound by all i
ts rules. He persisted in his work as a defender of the orthodox and confessional Lutheran faith as handed down from the sixteenth century. However, over time his leadership in the Confessional Movement, upholding Lutheran creeds, would create another set of crises. Rival clergy supporting these union propositions increased their public criticism of Stephan’s preaching and teaching.

  NOTES

  1 Mary Todd, Authority Vested (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 18–19.

  2 Todd, Authority Vested, 19.

  3 William Koepchen, “Pastor Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838” (unpublished ms., St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute; New York: Stephan Family Archives, 1935), 5.

  4 Koepchen, “Pastor Martin Stephan and the Saxon Emigration of 1838,” 46–49.

  11

  Disputes with the Saxon State Church

  By 1830 Martin Stephan had been a pastor for twenty years and was a well-established spiritual leader in Dresden. He was a charismatic preacher who steadfastly taught and preached the beliefs and practices of his German and Bohemian Lutheran Church. He was fifty-three years old, had been married for twenty years, and had fathered ten children. He was living in the era of competing philosophical and religious themes: Rationalism and Pietism. Stephan’s earlier training and spiritual heritage moved him to side with the pietistic movement and to fight against rationalism. At this point in his life, he had led the resistance against a Protestant merger of churches. He emerged as the leader of the “Old Lutherans,” a position that put him at odds with many local clergy including the state governed Lutheran Church superintendents. Some in government and others in the Consistory of Saxony began to think that he might be a political revolutionary.