Lutheran Quote of the Day: Gesetzlich Wesen Unter Uns - "Legalism Among Us"

Probably more than any other theologian, John Philipp Koehler has influenced me the most. His approach to theology and his keen insight into human behavior is astonishing. Gesetzlich Wesen Unter Uns, "Legalism Among Us," is a great example of his thought. Not only has he had a big influence on my own thought, he is also timeless in his observations. His intimate awareness of man's opinio legis, man's law bent mind, is always applicable, for there is nothing new under the sun. Though written in 1914 his words speak directly to what is going on (in many camps) in the LC-MS today. These words from another essay from Koehler seem especially applicable in our situation:

"Every kind of society, church groups included, is seized by the hurrah phenomenon and as such it becomes apparent generally at a time when a certain goal is to be reached quickly by a drive with external blatant means. All this hurrah business has certain traits which make it evident in arising out of the flesh; they are: 1) It appeals to the natural brutal sense in man, indicating that those who make use of it are willing to accommodate external brute force. 2) In a rousing attack, force is applied to accomplish with the might that which quiet, sustaining and thorough work cannot be relied on to produce. 3) Mass agitation is the object and the individual must be swept along by force with the crowd, because there is no confidence in the spontaneous decision of the individual personality. 4) The promoter, by noisy conduct, attracts attention to his own person. 5) Thus he would put himself across together with his concepts and aims, yet indeed not by an inward conviction of his fellow men but by the use of external means. 6) By so doing, love toward neighbor is forgotten, while selfishness, disaffection and malice have an open field. 7) Finally, hurrah sentiment always has the nature of clever fabrication. Headlines there are, true enough, and slogans that would give the impression of genuine value. Yet it does not carry the imprint of something which grew out of the unencumbered understanding of intelligent men of character and blossomed forth into an overwhelming truth...Now, sanctification, our actual Christian business, doesn't agree with that sort of thing. When once it becomes apparent that sanctification is in every point the direct opposite of hurrah sentiment, then every Christian ought to see for himself that we must avoid this general ruling spirit of the time."

J.P. Koehler was a highly original theologian. He was the prime formulator of what would become known as the "Wauwatosa Gospel." In part, this approach was a critique on the blind dogmatical acceptance that was going on in American Lutheran theology, especially in the Missouri Synod. He believed that "dogma" was not something one just blindly accepted because it was taught to him, rather, it is something that every theologian has to struggle through himself. Rather than blindly accepting what someone else says, Koehler encouraged students to figure it out for themselves, to go back to Scripture and the sources to make it "their own" theology. When this is not done, theology becomes merely a dead orthodoxy rather than a living and vital proclamation of the truths of Scripture. Koehler's mind was very unique and intuitive. He studied under C.F.W. Walther and Georg Stoeckhardt. From them he took back to Wisconsin a love for the practical and living theology of law and gospel from Walther, and a love for and an urgency to return to the Bible through exegetical theology from Stoeckhardt. Koehler drew on his vast and eccentric loves and knowledge for his thought, he was a very talented historian and exegetical theologian, he was also a very talented musician, artist, and architect. He was the designer of St. Johannes Lutheran Church in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Also, according to musicologist Walter E. Buszin, Koehler was the first American musicologist to edit professionally published Reformation and Baroque music like Perlen alter Kirchenmusik (1905) and Das Gemeindelied (1911).

Unfortunately much of the fruit of Koehler's work, and the implications that his work probably would have had in American Lutheranism were stifled when in 1930 he was dismissed from the Wisconsin Synod due mostly to the political and personal strife and controversy he spent his career writing against. He never really, personally speaking, recovered from this blow.

His essay comes in two installments due to the length. (I don't believe you are able to read the essay from a feed; you must come to the blogspot site in order to read.)

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