Mundinger Quotations on Battle for Voter Supremacy
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

The following quotations are from "Government in the Missouri Synod," by Dr. Carl S. Mundinger, CPH, St. Louis, 1947. They detail the victory of the laypeople for congregational supremacy in the LCMS, which in practice, is indistinguishable from voter supremacy.

These quotations are being given out prior to the "First National Free Conference on C. F. W. Walther" on November 5th and 6th at Hope Lutheran Church in St. Ann, Missouri.

For those unfamiliar with Rev. Martin Stephan, he led a group of five ships, with 700 immigrants, from Dresden, Germany, in 1838, to found a Lutheran colony in Perry County, MO. This colony was to become the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Within a year it became apparent that Stephan was a total dictator who demanded absolute obedience. While many of the immigrants died from exposure and severe conditions, Stephan lived in a large house, kept a wine cellar, and had a housekeeper. He was deposed when it was discovered that he also had eight mistresses among the colonists. The assistant pastors were eventually led by C. F. W. Walther who agreed to and then championed the lay people's right to congregational supremacy.

The pastors did everything. They considered themselves a final court of trial. The whole procedure was based upon the medieval assumption that the Church consists of the clergy and that the laymen have no part in the government of the Church. Page 88

By unanimous vote of the clergy, without even a trace of participation on the part of the laymen aside from the conventional "Ja" vote, Stephan was excommunicated, deposed, and removed from the landed property of the colony-all on that eventful day of May 30 1839. The fact that the laymen had previously gotten out a document in which they pleaded for participation of the laity in the action against Stephan and in which they pointed to the convention of laymen and pastor described in Acts 15 that the pastor had resigned their commissions in Germany and were temporary without calls-seemed to have not effect upon die Herrn Amtsbrueder [bored bureaucratic cronies]. Page 89

For years Stephan had adroitly manipulated his doctrine so that very many of colonists were of the firm conviction that Stephan was their chief means of grace (Hauptgnadenmittel) [head grace mediator] and that outside, and apart from, him there was no hope. Page 94

The clerical faction was gradually headed by C. F. W. Walther and the lay faction by Dr. Carl Eduard Vehse, perhaps the most learned of the entire group. Page 95

As far as the minutes show, the pastor was never legally permitted to attend the business part of the voters' meetings. Page 107

Walther was realistic enough to see that Vehse's theories, now espoused by Marbach and Burger, had many adherents through the colony. Page112

Walther, on the other hand, took his cue from Vehse and attacked the problem from the viewpoint of sixteenth century theology. Page 120

Theses IV-VIII supplement Vehse and therefore are really, as they existed at the moment, the heart of Walther's contributions at Altenburg. Page 121

Unhesitatingly he acknowledges the contribution which Vehse, Fisher, and Jaechel had made with their document of September 19, 1939. Page 122

Simply but quietly he [Walther] built his case on the same authority which Marbach, Buerger, Vehse, Fisher, Jaeckel and Wege had used. Page 123.

Just how did the principles which Vehse and Walther derived from the writings of Luther work out in the days-to-day life of a Lutheran Congregation? Page 125

The present writer has gone over the minutes of the early years several times with a view to tracing the application of the Vehse-Walther-Luther principle. Page 125

..it can be said that by the large the principle of congregational supremacy was applied in the early years of "old Trinity" and that it worked. Page 125

Every step which the congregation took was apparently in agreement with Walther's principle of the supremacy of the congregation, as is revealed the minutes. Page 126

Another major project of Trinity Congregation, of which we have an extensive record in the minutes and which illustrates the working of Walther's polity as derived through Vehse from Luther, is the framing of a constitution for the congregation. Page 132

August 1, 1842, it was resolved that Pastor Walther read the testimonies in Vehse's book which refer to the rights of a congregation. Page 139

Looking over the entire process of adoption of the constitution and examining the constitution itself in its entirety, the present writer could not escape the impression that genuinely democratic methods were used on the part of the congregation and that the constitution safeguarded the principle of congregational supremacy at every turn. Page 148

In estimating the almost morbid concern of the congregation to safeguard the principle of congregational supremacy the present writer wished to point to three factors: . page 148

The principle of decentralized government championed by Vehse and Marbach and adopted by Walther was upheld beyond a doubt in all operations connected with the building of the mother church of the Missouri Synod. Page 160

In fine, the principles which Vehse and Marbach had gathered from the writings of Luther, and which Walther adopted, were beginning to determine the routine of the congregation. Page 162

Walther states that their ultimate aim was to introduce uniform church government in all congregations served by them according to the pattern set by Luther. Page 165

In order to insure publication, the congregation as a whole voted to grant the magazine its (Der Lutheraner) financial support. Page 170

It was a channel through which Luther's concepts of church government and of doctrine generally flowed incessantly to the Lutheran laity of the American frontier, and it was a means of publicity whereby the Saxon pastors placed what they believed to be a true picture of themselves, their doctrine, and polity before the Lutheran Church of America.. page 170

Walther wrote, "Furthermore, our immigrant congregations view with alarm every institution that even faintly resembles a hierarchy, because of their terrible experience with Stephan." Page 172

The wording [for congregational supremacy] was fixed in the midst of a [Trinity] congregation that was intensely jealous of its congregational rights [in St. Louis, on May 18th, 1846, a month before the Fort Wayne Conference]. page 177

.and Trinity Congregation, St. Louis, became the leading congregation of the Missouri Synod and remained so fore over half a century. Page 177

In a certain sense one may call the constitution of the Missouri Synod the result of a seven-year battle for congregation rights [at Trinity Lutheran Church]. Page 179

Giving the laity equality with the clergy was something new in the American Lutheran Church. Page 181

The polity of the Missouri Synod was something apart from anything then known in America. It was the result of a catastrophic experience in their own midst. Page 183

The constitution also insisted on purely Lutheran forms of worship, hymnbooks, Catechism, and readers in the parish schools. Page 184

Finally they prepared what they thought was an airtight paragraph safeguarding the supremacy of the congregation against any and all possible clerical encroachments. Page 192

There are several factors which make connection between the genesis of Missouri's polity and existing American democratic theory rather improbable. The resemblance between the theory of congregational supremacy and American popular sovereignty is more apparent than real. Only male communicant members of the church who reached their twenty-first year had the right to vote. Furthermore, matters of doctrine and conscience which assumed great importance in the immigrant Church were not subject to popular vote, but were decided on the sole authority of the Scriptures. In such matters the Word of God hovered as a SUPEEME AUTHORITY over the congregation and Synod. This authority, be it remembered, was wielded officially and effectively by the pastor and by the Synodical officials. In a sermon delivered upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Missouri Synod as the jubilee convention, St. Louis, 1872, Walther said, "Reverence and implicit obedience are due the ministry when the pastor teaches the Word of God." Page 201)

The demand for lay participation in the government of the Church did not come until September 19, 1839. The demand came from a group of laymen led by Dr. Eduard Vehse. Page 204

The removal of Martin Stephan on May 30, 1839, and all the misery that followed that event gave the laymen the necessary jolt to press for lay participation in the government of the Church. This misery drove them into the writings of Luther, and here the laymen found the weapons which they needed to win the battle for CONGREGATIONAL SUPREMACY from the power-jealous pastors. Page 205)

Any democratic political theories which the founders of the Missouri Synod might have entertained, they did not get from America, but from the same source from which they derived their theory and church polity, viz., from the writings of Martin Luther. Walther's political democracy was not that of John Locke nor of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Page 207

Led by Dr. Vehse from May 30 to December 11, 1839, and after his return to Germany by Dr. F. A. Marbach, a group of highly intelligent laymen propagandized the colony in behalf of laymen's participation in the government of the Church. At the suggestion of Stephan these laymen had studied the writings of Martin Luther for years while they were still in Germany. Their knowledge of Luther's writings was astonishing. Their claims for lay participation in the government of the Church were based primarily upon the earlier statements of Luther concerning the priesthood of all believers. At first the Saxon ministerium, including C.F.W Walther, resisted these laymen most vigorously, as already stated.) Page 212

In this extreme exigency Walther made a virtue of necessity and adopted a realistic course. He accepted the principles of church government from the writings of Luther. Page 213

By putting real power into the laymen's hands the founders of the Missouri Synod nurtured and developed a sturdy and informed laity. The laymen learned by doing. The difficult problem of teaching men and women who had been brought up in the State Church of Germany the task of paying for the maintenance of the Church was solved by giving laymen the privilege and the duty of making important decisions in the Church.... The zeal which the early Missouri Synod laymen showed for their Church in that they attended meeting after meeting was produced, no doubt, in part by the fact that these men knew that their decisions were final. Page 218-219


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

October 31, 1999