Wauwawhat? (Part Three)

The Wauwatosa theologians not only revived biblical studies among confessional Lutherans, they also warned of the forms legalism could take in Lutheran circles. I will devote my next blog (the final one in the series) to paying final tribute to J.P. Köhler by looking in detail at an article he wrote against legalism and commenting on its continued relevance. But in today's blog I will talk about legalism inside and outside of Wauwatosa. As Köhler stated so well, legalism consists of deriving the power of the Christian life from the law rather than the gospel. Although confessional Lutherans might seem to be immune to legalism because we believe that we are saved by trusting in Christ rather than by doing the works of the law, there is an insidious means by which legalism can creep back into the church: preserving sound doctrine (noble task though it is) substitutes for believing it; in other words, we are tempted to become proud of our work of preserving orthodoxy rather than cherish the teaching God has given us. Moreover, Köhler argues, we can easily fall into legalism by overemphasizing a particular structure or style of organization for the church or by preaching a sanctification empowered by the law rather than the gospel.


Köhler’s words spoke to a confessional Lutheranism of the early 20th century that was often orthodox but had lost its first love (Rev. 2:4). Orthodoxy had become a game of “gotcha” rather than a reveling in the truth that our merciful God had revealed to us. There was also a rather dour attitude towards life in general that revealed itself in all sorts of prohibitions from going to the movies to installing lightning rods on barns. “For them, life was meant to be endured,” quipped one person about people of that generation. The joy of the gospel wasn’t there.

Köhler’s words were welcome, but unfortunately the Wauwatosa theology was not able to escape a legalism of its own. Köhler’s words in “Legalism among Us” are a candid but loving admonition to the Wisconsin and Missouri Synods. However, there was a torrent in Wisconsin of the 1920’s of what can only be called legalistic anti-legalistic writings, as writer after writer (from the renowned exegete August Pieper to elementary school teachers) wrote scathing denunciations of the Wisconsin Synod. The Synod had wanted merely to see the prisoners in the Bastille set free, but it got Jacobin terror instead.

Three incidents in particular stand out. Two school teachers denounced their pastor as a false prophet for not condemning what they considered vices. A college faculty and its governing board disagreed over the proper discipline for a couple dozen students. A parish pastor wrote a ham-handed attack on life in the Wisconsin Synod, complaining about everything from confirmation instruction to synod structure. In each instance the advocates of Wauwatosa were on the more rigorist side of the question and operated with little charity towards their opponents.

As a result the era of the Wauwatosa theology came to a formal end. Köhler left the presidency of the seminary in 1930 (and the Wisconsin Synod in 1933) and lived somewhat reclusively for his last twenty years. A handful of congregations left the Wisconsin Synod to form the Protes’tant Conference, unusually punctuated in more than one sense. That conference publishes the journal Faith-Life, which tends to have insightful articles by Köhler, less than useful (and perhaps less than truthful) encomiums to Köhler’s great musical and artistic abilities, and scathing denunciations involving personalities and events long forgotten. When I went through a stack of Faith-Life issues about twenty years, one article in particular stuck in my mind. It described how Köhler had criticized August Pieper out of the blue by saying at a dinner, “Pieper, du bist Pommer!” (“Pieper, you are a Pomeranian!”) This had taken place long before Pieper and Köhler parted company. Now one cannot read very much of Faith-Life without realizing that its writers deem August Pieper to be the Darth Vader of the Wisconsin Synod—the formerly noble knight who went over to the dark side. But there was no explanation as to why Köhler had made the remark, what it meant, and whether it was justified. If the reader didn’t instantly understand and assent, it was proof positive that the reader was hopelessly in error.

This is a negative legacy left by the Wauwatosa theologians, one that mars an otherwise positive inheritance. I would urge that the experience teaches us that those who rail against a particular form of legalism should be wary lest they fall into another form of that same vice.

Wauwawhat? (Part Two)

In my last post I noted that I sympathize with the goals of the Wauwatosa school. It sought to restore the primacy of exegesis even when doing systematic theology. It did not so much seek to overturn the conclusions of Missouri’s systematic theology as to add depth to it by making sure that it was not making use of a facile interpretation of a biblical passage but that it fully understood the context. But even as I praise it, I must say that to some degree that its more recent advocates have done injustice to the state of affairs in which Wauwatosa developed. Ironically I find myself having less trouble with the Wauwatosa theology itself than some of its would-be heirs, just as those of the Wauwatosa school objected less to the 19th century C.F.W. Walther than to his heirs in the early 20th century.


Most discussions of the Wauwatosa theology fail to consider the whole context of education in the early twentieth century. For one thing, the history given in the first volume of Northwestern Publishing House’s collected works of the Wauwatosa school is a little misleading. It correctly chronicles how much time the seminarians at the Missouri Synod’s Saint Louis seminary devoted to mastering the Latin of the Baier-Walther Compendium, but it fails to recognize that most Missouri Synod pastors were not trained there in the synod’s first sixty years or so, but at its practical seminary (which migrated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Saint Louis to Springfield, Illinois, and would eventually return to Fort Wayne) and its pre-seminary partner schools in Germany. It was only in the early twentieth century that the synod thought it might be better if more of its ministers were given the highly academic training of Saint Louis than the more practical training of Springfield. To accomplish that, though, the Missouri Synod realized that it would have to drop some of its practices (such as the heavy use of Latin in the classroom) that proved too big of an obstacle to all but the best students.

And thus it is easier to understand the reason that the Wauwatosa school declined to copy Missouri’s model of education in its entirety. While the Missouri Synod still retained a more practical route of training for its ministers, the Wisconsin had only one option: six years of Gymnasium (the equivalent of a boarding high school and junior college) followed by seminary. Thus, it made little sense to foster a seminary curriculum that even the larger Missouri Synod found too impractical for most of its pastors and was revising even for its more academically minded students. And yet the histories gloss over this reason for why the Wauwatosa seminary developed the way it did.

In addition, the histories of the Wauwatosa theology seem blissfully ignorant of the larger picture of educational trends in the late nineteenth century. A mere state away from Wauwatosa was Augsburg College, which under the tutelage of Georg Sverdrup and the Lutheran Free Church sought both a more exegetical approach to theology and a broader cultural education than the traditional model provided, enamored as it was with Greco-Roman antiquity. And yet the late Leigh Jordahl in his doctoral dissertation argues that Wauwatosa was one of a kind in breaking from the Latin theological model. (Jordahl, trained in Norwegian-American circles, ought to have known better.) On a more global scale there was an intense debate on the direction education should go. Was academic specialization to be preferred to the teaching of a common curriculum? Should education be founded on practical truth rather than abstract theory? Indeed, was anything that was not in some way practical untrue? Was it possible to speed up learning by presenting abstractions (e.g., by giving entire paradigms of grammatical forms at once) rather than by having students learn more intuitively?

None of this lessens the value of the Wauwatosa theology. But it seems ironic that those who love Wauwatosa’s emphasis on understanding historical context seem to have overlooked some of the historical context of Wauwatosa.

Wauwawhat? (Part One)

In my next couple of blogs I will be writing about “the Wauwatosa theology.” It gets into some arcane history, but some of that history gets into more recent events in confessional Lutheranism. Even though I belong to the Missouri Synod (ca. 2.4 million members) instead of the Wisconsin Synod (ca. 390,000 members) where the Wauwatosa theology was centered, I cannot entirely ignore it because the Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod were in fellowship with each other at the time and it had an effect on both denominations.


But what is the Wauwatosa theology? It refers to the emphases found in the Wisconsin Synod of approximately the 1910’s and 1920’s when that synod had its seminary in Wauwatosa and was under the leadership of J.P. Köhler. Although August Pieper and Johannes Schaller (and sometimes Hermann Meyer and Adolf Hönecke) are often mentioned as fellow Wauwatosa theologians, it was Köhler who was the driving force behind the movement. Although it would be incorrect to speak of a Wauwatosa theology as soon as he began teaching at the seminary in 1900, it was certainly well in place when he took over the presidency in 1920. The movement came to a formal end with the seminary’s move in 1929 and the end of Köhler’s presidency in 1930, although most in the Wisconsin Synod would say that its legacy remains.

At the heart of the Wauwatosa theology was a re-emphasis on exegetical theology (which explains the Scriptures verse by verse) and to a lesser extent historical theology (which is concerned with the history of the church and theology). This emphasis stood in distinction to the Missouri Synod at the time, which spent more time on systematic theology (which explains the teachings of the Scripture topic by topic) and practical theology (which teaches pastors how to apply doctrine in their parish life through preaching, teaching, pastoral care, and the like). In addition, the Wauwatosa movement criticized the Missouri Synod for its educational system that placed a premium on doing theology in Latin. This was due to the fact that nearly every systematic theology had been written in Latin until the nineteenth century and the early Missouri Synod found little to commend in the contemporary systematic theologies being published in German or English. Because many students were too busy struggling with the Latin in the Baier-Walther Compendium, the main systematics textbook, they had no time to devote to verse by verse exegesis of the Scripture.

Even before the Wauwatosa theology made its appearance, the Missouri Synod had realized that there was a problem and was correcting it. C.F.W. Walther (who is sometimes caricatured by historians of the Wauwatosa school as hostile to serious exegesis or at least uninterested in it) finagled a call to Georg Stöckhardt to teach exegetical theology at his seminary; indeed, Walther was far more eager than just about anyone to see more exegesis taught at his seminary. Köhler and his colleagues readily acknowledged their deep debt to Stöckhardt and to Walther, but some more recent chroniclers of the Wauwatosa movement are less willing to do so. Moreover, about the same time that the Wauwatosa school was forming, Franz Pieper wrote a systematic theology in German so that his students wouldn’t have to struggle with Latin theological texts any more, thus freeing up more time for other studies. (A generation later seminarians found the German as difficult as their forebears had found the Latin, and Pieper’s work was translated into English.) More exegetical courses were added with the result that today the total number of required exegetical courses in Missouri’s schools outnumbers the systematic ones and is close to that required by the Wisconsin Synod. The transition was also furthered along by a change in Missouri’s environment. In its first half century or so the synod was growing so quickly that the best form of education seemed to be to cover all the major theological topics as well as possible and to offer advice on how to preach them and then to let the seminarian read the Bible carefully verse by verse on his own once he was out in the parish. But now the synod was beginning to realize the value of a more rounded theological education.

I tend to think of myself as more of an exegete than a systematician, but systematics has been a close second love. It is not surprising then that I find much to commend in the Wauwatosa theology. I recommend the three volume collection of the Wauwatosa theology published by Northwestern Publishing House, the first of which has a quite detailed history of the movement. I also recommend John Schaller’s Biblical Christology as a fine example of systematic theology done with an exegetical bent. At the same time, though, I find that there are areas of that school that bear further investigation and perhaps even critique.

All That Jazz

Has anyone else noticed that whenever a jewelry store or high end furniture gallery runs an ad on the radio, there is always upbeat jazz playing in the background? It’s never quite as laid back as Kenny G, but there is never any scatting either. It tends to feature saxophone or guitar solos rather than trumpet ones. It never has any of the edginess of ragtime or Latin jazz, but is more of a distilled form of the genre without lapsing into muzak.


It makes perfect sense. What other type of music would you expect to be played? Pop rock is the music of the hoi polloi. Indie rock might show that you have some taste, but also probably indicates that you have no money; it would be the perfect music for a futon store ad, if futon stores actually advertized. Country music appeals to people who care more about the bed of their pickup truck than the bed in their house. The usual classical music favored in advertisement—things like a Mozart concerto—might appeal to a well-educated and wealthier crowd, but it also conveys the notion of being stuffy. And that leaves a more urbane form of jazz. It says that you are the kind of person who came from a family that took music seriously. You learned to play the piano, but you didn’t stay stuck in the eighteenth century. You sneaked out to go to those small clubs featuring musicians that 99% of the population had never heard of. You love flattened fifths and swung notes and other things that “break the rules.” You’re a bit naughty, but in a nice way; no one ever gets hurt. You’re sophisticated and enjoy the finer things in life, but you don’t want to drive Daddy’s car or have his couch from his suburban McMansion in your trendy city loft. And the advertisers are saying, “We’re just as sophisticated. Come on in and you’ll see a selection that is all you.”

Interestingly enough, though, the musical choice seems to work even with people who didn’t grow up in Kenilworth, spending their misspent youth on sneaking into the city to go to the Green Mill. (That certainly isn’t my background.) The important thing is that when you decide to buy that engagement ring or splurge on that really nice sofa, you go to a place run by people who have the sophistication that you feel you may lack. As long as you have the sense that they are honest people, you want someone who will steer you into making the right choice—and make you look more debonair than you really are.

This has application to life in the church. There is nothing inherently wrong with any genre of music for its use in the church, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with a furniture showroom using any kind of music it wants. But because music has cultural associations—associations, by the way, that change over time—one has to be thoughtful about the sort of music used in the church. The music should convey that the church is ancient, not archaic; modern, not ephemeral; holy, not sanctimonious; amid a particular culture, not of it; and a lover of beauty, not hedonistic. That’s a tall order, but an important one.

Change and the Church

It is an article of faith in many sectors of Christianity that everyone must be for every change in the church, no matter what it might be. “Change or die” is their motto, and there is some truth to that adage. Companies determined only to sell buggy whips have gone out of business. But there is a corresponding truth that is often overlooked: if you change, you will die. Many companies have tried tinkering with the formula that had brought them success and were quickly driven into bankruptcy. Change can breathe new life into a dying organization, but it can also kill off a healthy one. Healthy babies must change by constantly growing and maturing. Healthy adults, however, often have to resist changes, such as cancer and the deterioration of the body.


Change in and of itself, therefore, shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of the church—or a company or organization or government. We shouldn’t tell pastors that their one calling in life is to be a visionary leader of change. And we certainly shouldn’t tell pastors that their Sunday sermons are supposed to be all about keeping in front of their congregation’s eyes the organizational changes they desire. (A few years ago I was actually told by an expert in my denomination that this should be the focus of my preaching rather than the Scriptures!) We shouldn’t condition congregations to embrace every proposed change unthinkingly. And that means we need to stop joking about people who are resistant to change, as if they are all troglodytes who think that the wheel will spell the downfall of civilization.

Instead we should have a more nuanced approach. When a body is growing, there are certain constants (e.g., the DNA is always the same, as is the overall structure), even as there are certain changes being made (e.g., in height and weight). Even when a body has reached maturity and is not growing any more, little changes are constantly occurring, as when one cell dies and another replaces it. And thus we should expect that life in the church (as well as in society at large) will balance change and constancy. Constancy won’t be sclerosis, and change won’t be artificial. There will be an organic development, one where the change confirms and builds upon the substance.

In order to do that, churches and pastors must cultivate a climate that welcomes both new ideas and constructive criticism of them. Everyone must understand that God has placed in the church people with different attitudes toward change. Some will automatically be for it, others against it, and many in the middle who (like myself) embrace some changes while eschewing others. Rather than write off the other groups as unrepentant degenerates (as many church leaders have treated those less than eager for every change), the church ought to welcome all these voices. Those who embrace change without a second thought need to listen to those who oppose it. They must also give them time to formulate their ideas because often opponents can sense a negative result of a proposed change before they can articulate it. At the same time, opponents of change must be willing to consider whether or not they are against a particular idea simply because they don’t want to be bothered with something new.

This process should also help people to see that a change need not be merely an either/or proposition. Sometimes the question is not whether a change should be made, but when, and that point gets lost in the debate. To use an example from my personal life, I often welcome the announcement of new technologies, but I am also rarely the first to buy them, mainly because they are pricy and full of bugs when they first come out. I wait to buy them until they have gone mainstream. By the same token, a church that chooses to adopt something that is rather unusual will often have to pay an extra cost and deal with many unforeseen problems, while another church that adopts the same general ideas a decade later may do so with fewer difficulties.

All change isn’t of God—or of the devil. Therefore, we need a spirit of discernment in order to make wise choices.

Mystery or Science Fiction?

When I was in graduate school, one of my classmates asked, “Mystery or science fiction?” He went on to explain, “That is the raging debate that divides classicists. Either you read mystery novels for fun or you read science fiction.” Up to that time I had thought that the great divide in that profession was between the Hellenists and the Latinists, that is, between those who preferred to read and teach ancient Greek and those who preferred Latin. I had known nothing of this other debate.


At the time I straddled the divide. I had read mystery novels voraciously ever since I was a child and still do. I especially love mysteries that double as historical novels, such as those featuring Brother Cadfael (written by Ellis Peters) and Gordianus the Finder (written by Steven Saylor). For years I wouldn’t miss Mystery! when it was running on PBS on Thursday nights. But I also loved science fiction, cutting my teeth on Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. I grew up watching Star Trek and similar shows. Often I loved science fiction more for its cheesiness, and it was a guilty pleasure, much like scarfing down a bag of potato chips. But since then my love for science fiction has waned a bit, mainly because of the unevenness of the genre. While there are many great works like Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, there are also hundreds of books where the writing is puerile and the thoughts more so. Although mysteries also vary in quality, even the most pedestrian cozy mystery usually has its redeeming characteristics. The same cannot be said of science fiction. Nonetheless, I still enjoy watching some science fiction movies, sometimes for its cinematic value (e.g., Blade Runner and Dark City) and sometimes because of its compelling tale or moral (e.g., Gattaca, Brazil, and Minority Report), although I now do substantially less reading in the genre. Thus, if I had to answer the question today, I would lean to the mystery side of the divide.

But why would this be a hot topic for classicists when neither genre existed in the ancient world? I have never heard anyone give an answer, but I think that the genre of pleasure reading indicates how a scholar approaches antiquity. In a mystery the central character is lifeless and cannot directly help in the investigation. Instead, the corpse is dissected and clues ferreted out from other sources in order to find the killer. Science fiction, however, portrays not only people who are well and alive, but also an entire living civilization that is perhaps as essential a character as any of the individuals who appear in the book. Thus, it would seem that mystery lovers would approach antiquity as a dead civilization, whose language must be parsed and whose social history carefully pieced together from various authors, while science fiction fans would seem more interested in recreating a living civilization. So far the advantage would seem to lie with the science fiction crowd. But mysteries often do a better job at portraying how people interact with each other, perhaps because the crime can be solved only when one has a full understanding of those dynamics. And, thus, mysteries may feature a death prominently but they ironically may also seem more alive than works of science fiction do. That is doubly true when the work of science fiction creates an alien world mainly to serve as a foil for present day society. Such worlds are as dull and lifeless as the thinly veiled screeds that they are.

Science fiction also tends to be either utopian or dystopian, while mysteries tend to reveal a much more nuanced world. St. Mary Mead may seem somewhat idyllic at first glance, but Agatha Christie is no Edward Bellamy; her Miss Jane Marple knows very well where all the bodies are buried. By the same token, even the hardboiled detectives seem less cynical about their worlds than do authors of dystopian science fiction. Moreover, while science fiction tends to focus on technology as either the problem or the solution, mysteries offer a broader explanation for humanity’s failings.

Both genres will doubtlessly be with us for many more years, and the excellent quality of some works in each genre will win the grudging respect of fans of the other. But it is useful, nonetheless, to consider what our favorite genre of books and movies tells others about us.

The picture in this post is in the public domain because the copyright has lapsed.