Encore Post: 214 years ago, Wilhelm Löhe was the pastor of a small, rural parish in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. He was a leader in Germany’s then new Confessionalist movement. Because of this role, he always had a strained relationship with the leaders of his church body and so was kept out of the way — or so they thought.
Löhe was a man of boundless energy, persuasive when advocating a cause and highly skilled at marshaling talent and funds to accomplish a goal. In 1842, he read Friedrich Wyneken‘s appeals for the spiritual need of German Lutherans on the American frontier and his stirring plea for pastors. Löhe published his own appeal. He arranged to meet Wyneken to publish a polished version of the missionary’s appeal, titled Die Noth der deutschen Lutheraner in Nordamerika (The Need of the German Lutherans in North America) These appeals caused donations to flow in and soon second career men to volunteer to meet the need.
But Löhe was just getting started. with his friend Johann Friedrich Wucherer, he provided a basic education to second career men who volunteered to go to America. Soon they founded a mission society, raised funds, wrote manuals, instructions and churchly books. He at first send these men and donations to the Ohio Synod’s seminary in Columbus, Ohio. When cultural and theological differences made that no longer possible, he worked with Wilhelm Sihler, pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne, Indiana to found a “practical seminary” — an institution focused on providing pastors for the church as quickly as possible. In October 1846, this institution opened in his parsonage. This institution is now known as Concordia Theological Seminary — but that is another story!
Wilhelm Löhe, his friends and his small parish were just getting started, though. Seeing the suffering of the poor, the ill, the widowed and orphaned, he revived the office of Deaconess. He also sent men and material to the Wartburg Seminary and its church body, the Iowa Synod (now a part of the ELCA), to Australia, the German colonists of Russia and other places. In an effort to provide a Christian witness to native Americans, he organized and founded Frankenmuth and neighboring communities. His liturgies and worship books became the foundation of the Missouri Synod’s liturgy.
At the age of 63, Wilhelm Löhe died still serving as the pastor of his rural parish on January 2, 1872. He is buried where he served. His institutions still continue to this day, serving God and his church world-wide.
Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Where in this great saga of missionaries did Springfield come in ?
Springfield is much later. We got there in 1875-1876. By then the Nothilfer age was at an end. Most of our students were then second career, married or from a sister synod